How do I match a string beginning with certain characters using grep?

indigowinged

Note: Be careful with the I/O redirection characters < and > always ensure important files can be easily retrieved from backups.

Example textfile used.

$ cat textfile
If the boots fits
boots
bootss
bloom
beautiful

We want to match the strings matching boots at the beginning of a string, in this case it is the word boots.

$ grep "\<boots" textfile
If the boots fit
bootsy was here
bootss