A word indicating that the device is never reaching the end of its boot phase and starting over
Useless when used in describing an error, since there are many points in time during a device boot where it might abort and start over, e.g.
At the vendor logo
Looping the LineageOS bootanimation endlessly
Reaching the login screen or setup but immediately turning back to the vendor logo
etc.
Bricked
A device can not be recovered from a fatal failure by any means, leaving it in a state of either not powering on at all or crashing to some kind of
error message
People often use this word in places where they just mean a Bootloop and their issue can be fixed using either button presses or readily available software tools
Custom ROM
A (self-)built Android version with changes on top of the AOSP (Android Open Source Project)
Degoogled
A term describing that an OS has no software parts from and making connections to Google
LineageOS is not explicitly degoogled, we simply don’t ship GApps due to licensing
Firmware
Included in the Stock ROM. A layer of software required to connect the OS to the hardware.
Not the same as a Custom ROM or ROM in general but sometimes included with them
GApps
Google Apps, usually consisting of the GMS (Google Messaging Services), the Play Store and a varying amount of the native Apps made by Google (Dialer, Messenger, Calender, etc)
Not preinstalled on LineageOS
OEM
Original Equipment Manufacturer, the one who made a device
Stock ROM
The variant of Android the vendor/OEM put onto the device or sent via an update