In the domain of MOSFET circuits, bootstrapping is commonly used to mean pulling up the operating point of a transistor above the power supply rail. The same term has been used somewhat more generally for dynamically altering the operating point of an operational amplifier (by shifting both its positive and negative supply rail) in order to increase its output voltage swing (relative to the ground). In the sense used in this paragraph, bootstrapping an operational amplifier means "using a signal to drive the reference point of the op-amp's power supplies". A more sophisticated use of this rail bootstrapping technique is to alter the non-linear C/V characteristic of the inputs of a JFET op-amp in order to decrease its distortion.