ping

See also: Ping, píng, pìng, Píng, pīng, and pǐng

English

Etymology

Partly onomatopoeic, and partly continuing Middle English pingen (“to push, shove, pierce, stab, prod, goad, urge, feel remorse, incite”), from Old English pyngan (“to prick”), in turn likely from pungere. Compare English pang.

Pronunciation

• enPR: pĭng; IPA^(key): /pɪŋ/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪŋ

Noun

ping (plural pings)

1. A high-pitched, short and somewhat sharp sound.

   Coordinate terms: beep, peep

   My car used to make an odd ping, but after the last oil change it went away.

   • 1982, Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything, page 89:

     With a sudden ping, there was a rabbit there in the black labyrinth with him[.]

2. (submarine navigation) A pulse of high-pitched or ultrasonic sound whose echoes provide information about nearby objects and vessels.

   The submarine sent out a ping and got an echo from a battleship.

4. (networking) A packet which a remote host is expected to echo, thus indicating its presence.

   Coordinate terms: heartbeat, ACK

   The network is overloaded from all the pings going out.

5. (text messaging, Internet) An email or other message sent requesting acknowledgement.

   I sent a ping to the insurance company to see if they received our claim.

6. (networking) Latency.
   • 2000 April 4, CaPRubberchecks, “Low-Ping servers...YIKES!”, in alt.games.starsiege.tribes (Usenet):
   • 2000 November 8, [email protected], “HL DM with a low ping.......”, in alt.games.half-life (Usenet):

     "You low ping c**t, you only win cos of your ping!"
     > > And other such insights into why I was winning.

   • 2001 August 2, Asha, “high ping in cs low ping outside cs??”, in alt.games.half-life.counterstrike (Usenet):
   • 2002 June 24, drip, “Bandwidth - Lagtime”, in alt.games.unreal.tournament (Usenet):

     Your best bet to negate lag is to go to a server using the zero ping mutator. This will compensate for your high ping when using a pistol, sniper or […]

7. (video games) A means of highlighting a feature on the game map so that allied players can see it.
8. (Wikimedia jargon) A notification.

Related terms

• ghost-ping
• pingdemic
• ping pong

 

Translations

a high-pitched, short and somewhat sharp sound

• Bulgarian: свистене n (svistene)
• Czech: cinknutí n
• Finnish: kilahdus (fi)

a pulse of high-pitched or ultrasonic sound

a packet which a remote host is expected to echo

• Galician: ping m
• Hungarian: ping (hu)
• Marathi: पिंग m (piṅga)
• Persian: پینگ (fa) (ping)
• Spanish: ping m

an email or other message sent requesting acknowledgement

• Finnish: kilahdus (fi)

Verb

ping (third-person singular simple present pings, present participle pinging, simple past pinged or (nonstandard) pang, past participle pinged or (nonstandard) pung)

1. To make a high-pitched, short and somewhat sharp sound.

   My car was pinging until my last oil change.

   • 2013, Francine Rivers, And the Shofar Blew:

     The microwave pinged. He forked the steak onto the plate and set the timer again.

2. (submarine navigation) To emit a signal and then listen for its echo in order to detect objects.
4. (networking) To send a packet in order to determine whether a host is present, particularly by use of the ping utility.

   Coordinate term: poll

   I'm pinging their server.

   The server pings its affiliates periodically.

   • 2008, Allan Reid, Jim Lorenz, Working at a Small-to-Medium Business or ISP, Cisco Press, →ISBN:

     Just because you cannot ping a server or telnet to it does not mean that the server is down or inaccessible.

5. (by extension) To send an email or other message to someone in hopes of eliciting a response.

   Coordinate term: buzz

   I'll ping the insurance company again to see if they've received our claim.

   • 2001 November 25, William Safire, “On Language; The Arab Street”, in New York Times‎^[1]:

     If any deeper etymology is required, Arthur, don't ping me; I'll ping you.

   • 2014, Jessica Pryce-Jones, Julia Lindsay, Running Great Meetings and Workshops For Dummies, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 294:

     If certain attendees don't actively participate and that's a surprise to you, ping them an email or private chat message and ask what's happening for them.

6. (colloquial) To flick.

   I pinged the crumb off the table with my finger.

7. (colloquial, sports, intransitive) To bounce.

   The ball pinged off the wall and came hurtling back.

8. (colloquial, sports, transitive) To cause something to bounce.
   • 2010 December 29, Chris Whyatt, “Chelsea 1 - 0 Bolton”, in BBC‎^[2]:

     Charging through the Bolton midfield to find a free moment, Essien then pinged the ball into the space into which Drogba was intelligently running.

9. (colloquial, sports) To call out audibly.
   • 2011 September 24, Ben Dirs, “Rugby World Cup 2011: England 67-3 Romania”, in BBC Sport‎^[3]:

     However, after an inside pass from Moody to Tom Croft and a surge from the England blind-side, number eight James Haskell was eventually pinged from in front of the posts for not releasing.

10. (colloquial) To penalize.

    Gary Ablett was pinged for holding the ball and gave away a free kick.

11. (transitive, intransitive, LGBTQ, slang) To trigger a person's gaydar; to look or act obviously homosexual.

    Bob has two kids, but he really pings.

    • 2022, Maxim Jakubowski, The Book of Extraordinary Femme Fatale Stories:

      Plus, he pings her gaydar big time, although there's nothing obvious about it in his comportment.

Derived terms

• ghost-ping
• reply-ping

 

Translations

to make a high-pitched, short and somewhat sharp sound

• Bulgarian: свистя (svistja)
• Czech: cinknout (cs) pf
• Finnish: kilahtaa (fi)

to emit a signal and then listen for its echo in order to detect objects

• Finnish: kaikuluodata

to send a packet in order to determine whether a host is present

• Catalan: pinguejar
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: ping (zh)

• Dutch: pingen (nl)
• Finnish: pingata
• German: pingen (de)
• Hungarian: pingel

to send an email or other message to someone in hopes of eliciting a response

• Hungarian: megpingel, ráír (hu), ráüzen

to flick

• Czech: cvrnknout pf
• Finnish: näpäyttää (fi)

to bounce

• Bulgarian: отскачам (bg) (otskačam)
• Finnish: kimmota (fi)

to cause something to bounce

• Finnish: kimmottaa (fi)

Anagrams

• NigP

Aromanian

Alternative forms

• pingu

Etymology

Probably from Latin impingō, with the loss of the initial prefix, or from a root *pingō instead of pangō. Compare Daco-Romanian împinge, împing.

Verb

ping first-singular present indicative (past participle pimte)

1. to push

Related terms

• pindzeri
• pimt
• pimsh

Chinese

Etymology

Borrowed from English ping.

Verb

ping

1. (transitive, networking) to ping

   ping不通網關／ping不通网关  ―  ping bù tōng wǎngguān  ―  failed to ping the gateway

Noun

ping

1. (video games) latency

Galician

Etymology

Borrowed from English ping.

Noun

ping m (plural pings)

1. ping

Javanese

Etymology

From Old Javanese piṅ.

Determiner

ping

1. times

Mandarin

Romanization

ping

1. Nonstandard spelling of pīng.
2. Nonstandard spelling of píng.
3. Nonstandard spelling of pǐng.
4. Nonstandard spelling of pìng.

Usage notes

• Transcriptions of Mandarin into the Latin script often do not distinguish between the critical tonal differences employed in the Mandarin language, using words such as this one without indication of tone.

Spanish

Etymology

Borrowed from English ping.

Noun

ping m (plural pings)

1. ping

Turkish

Etymology

From English ping.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /piɲɟ/

Noun

ping (definite accusative pingi, plural pingler)

1. (networking) ping, latency

Declension

Inflection
Nominative	ping
Definite accusative	pingi
	Singular	Plural
Nominative	ping	pingler
Definite accusative	pingi	pingleri
Dative	pinge	pinglere
Locative	pingde	pinglerde
Ablative	pingden	pinglerden
Genitive	pingin	pinglerin
Possessive forms Nominative Singular Plural 1st singular pingim pinglerim 2nd singular pingin pinglerin 3rd singular pingi pingleri 1st plural pingimiz pinglerimiz 2nd plural pinginiz pingleriniz 3rd plural pingleri pingleri Definite accusative Singular Plural 1st singular pingimi pinglerimi 2nd singular pingini pinglerini 3rd singular pingini pinglerini 1st plural pingimizi pinglerimizi 2nd plural pinginizi pinglerinizi 3rd plural pinglerini pinglerini Dative Singular Plural 1st singular pingime pinglerime 2nd singular pingine pinglerine 3rd singular pingine pinglerine 1st plural pingimize pinglerimize 2nd plural pinginize pinglerinize 3rd plural pinglerine pinglerine Locative Singular Plural 1st singular pingimde pinglerimde 2nd singular pinginde pinglerinde 3rd singular pinginde pinglerinde 1st plural pingimizde pinglerimizde 2nd plural pinginizde pinglerinizde 3rd plural pinglerinde pinglerinde Ablative Singular Plural 1st singular pingimden pinglerimden 2nd singular pinginden pinglerinden 3rd singular pinginden pinglerinden 1st plural pingimizden pinglerimizden 2nd plural pinginizden pinglerinizden 3rd plural pinglerinden pinglerinden Genitive Singular Plural 1st singular pingimin pinglerimin 2nd singular pinginin pinglerinin 3rd singular pinginin pinglerinin 1st plural pingimizin pinglerimizin 2nd plural pinginizin pinglerinizin 3rd plural pinglerinin pinglerinin