Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also kick) to inject a drug in stages, drawing the heroin/blood mixture up into the syringe/eyedropper, then injecting, then repeating the process several times; usu. as booting n.³ ; thus booter, one who performs this [this ‘pumping’ supposedly intensifies the kick n.⁵ (1) that accompanies the injection; ? thus it ‘gives one a kick’].

1952		‘Hal Ellson’ Golden Spike 32: He kicked four times, drawing his blood up into the syringe and mixing it with the drug.
1978		H. Selby Jr Requiem for a Dream (1987) 20: [...] then let the dropper fill with blood again and squeezed that in and then booted again and went with the flow.
1995		J. Stahl Permanent Midnight 302: So you boot it [...] You slide out that shining needle, you pull back, watch the blood fill up the tube, and plunge back in.
2000		N. Griffiths Grits 100: A gerrit right iss time, too fuckin right a do, pump me veyn up in two fuckin seconds an jack it streyt fuckin in, not even both’rin to boot the fucker.
2004		(con. 1990s) N. ‘Razor’ Smith A Few Kind Words and a Loaded Gun 406: Major criminals who [...] are secret ‘booters’ who kid themselves that they are only ‘dabbling’.
2005		M. Abbott Die a Little (2008) 193: She booted it – hit the needle real slow, pulling back and pumping the blood again and again to get a bigger fix.
2013		J. Stahl Bad Sex on Speed 12: Lurleen [...] would boot her vag-needle, let it stand up and quiver by itself.

2. in ext. use, to smoke or sniff heroin or crack cocaine.

2001

(con. 1964–8) J. Ellroy Cold Six Thousand 487: He sends me little tastes, and I boot them when I get bored to death [...] I’m no junkie. I sniff it.

3. in weak use of sense 1, to inject a narcotic.

1959

W. Brown Teen-Age Mafia 70: Whitey had booted enough horse into her so that she’d be out for three or four hours.