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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

ping.

A high-pitched, short and somewhat sharp sound.

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

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

    My car used to make an odd ping, but after the last oil change it went away.
  2. 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.
  3. A packet which a remote host is expected to echo, thus indicating its presence.

    The network is overloaded from all the pings going out.
  4. An email or other message sent requesting acknowledgement.

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

  6. A means of highlighting a feature on the game map so that allied players can see it.

  7. A notification.

Where this word comes from

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.

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

    My car was pinging until my last oil change.
  2. To emit a signal and then listen for its echo in order to detect objects.

  3. To send a packet in order to determine whether a host is present, particularly by use of the ping utility.

    I'm pinging their server.
    The server pings its affiliates periodically.
  4. To send an email or other message to someone in hopes of eliciting a response.

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

    colloquial
    I pinged the crumb off the table with my finger.
  6. To bounce.

    colloquial · intransitive
    The ball pinged off the wall and came hurtling back.
  7. To cause something to bounce.

    colloquial · transitive
  8. To call out audibly.

    colloquial
  9. To penalize.

    Australia · colloquial
    Gary Ablett was pinged for holding the ball and gave away a free kick.
  10. To trigger a person's gaydar; to look or act obviously homosexual.

    ambitransitive · slang
    Bob has two kids, but he really pings.
Where this word comes from

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.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.