From WordNet (r) 2.0 (August 2003) [wn]:
Ping
n 1: a river in western Thailand; a major tributary of the Chao
Phraya [syn: Ping, Ping River]
2: a sharp high-pitched resonant sound (as of a sonar echo or a
bullet striking metal)
v 1: hit with a pinging noise; "The bugs pinged the lamp shade"
2: sound like a car engine that is firing too early; "the car
pinged when I put in low-octane gasoline"; "The car pinked
when the ignition was too far retarded" [syn: pink,
knock]
3: make a short high-pitched sound; "the bullet pinged when
they struck the car"
4: contact, usually in order to remind of something; "I'll ping
my accountant--April 15 is nearing"
5: send a message from one computer to another to check whether
it is reachable and active; "ping your machine in the
office"
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:
Ping \Ping\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Pinged; p. pr. & vb. n.
Pinging.]
To make the sound called ping.
[1913 Webster]
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:
Ping \Ping\, n. [Probably of imitative origin.]
The sound made by a bullet in striking a solid object or in
passing through the air.
[1913 Webster]
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:
backfire \backfire\, back fire \back fire\
1. A fire started ahead of a forest or prairie fire to burn
only against the wind, so that when the two fires meet
both must go out for lack of fuel.
[Webster 1913 Suppl.]
2.
(a) A premature explosion in the cylinder of a gas or oil
engine during the exhaust or the compression stroke,
tending to drive the piston in a direction reverse to
that in which it should travel; also called a knock
or ping.
(b) an explosion in the exhaust passages of an internal
combustion engine.
[Webster 1913 Suppl. +PJC] Backfire
From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (19 Sep 2003) [foldoc]:
ping
Packet InterNet Groper
From Jargon File (4.4.4, 14 Aug 2003) [jargon]:
ping
[from the submariners' term for a sonar pulse]
1. n. Slang term for a small network message (ICMP ECHO) sent by a
computer to check for the presence and alertness of another. The Unix
command ping(8) can be used to do this manually (note that ping(8)'s
author denies the widespread folk etymology that the name was ever
intended as an acronym for `Packet INternet Groper'). Occasionally
used as a phone greeting. See ACK, also ENQ.
2. vt. To verify the presence of.
3. vt. To get the attention of.
4. vt. To send a message to all members of a mailing list
requesting an ACK (in order to verify that everybody's addresses
are reachable). "We haven't heard much of anything from Geoff, but he
did respond with an ACK both times I pinged jargon-friends."
5. n. A quantum packet of happiness. People who are very happy tend
to exude pings; furthermore, one can intentionally create pings and
aim them at a needy party (e.g., a depressed person). This sense of
ping may appear as an exclamation; "Ping!" (I'm happy; I am emitting
a quantum of happiness; I have been struck by a quantum of
happiness). The form "pingfulness", which is used to describe people
who exude pings, also occurs. (In the standard abuse of language,
"pingfulness" can also be used as an exclamation, in which case it's
a much stronger exclamation than just "ping"!). Oppose blargh.
The funniest use of `ping' to date was described in January 1991 by
Steve Hayman on the Usenet group comp.sys.next. He was trying to
isolate a faulty cable segment on a TCP/IP Ethernet hooked up to a
NeXT machine, and got tired of having to run back to his console
after each cabling tweak to see if the ping packets were getting
through. So he used the sound-recording feature on the NeXT, then
wrote a script that repeatedly invoked ping(8), listened for an echo,
and played back the recording on each returned packet. Result? A
program that caused the machine to repeat, over and over, "Ping ...
ping ... ping ..." as long as the network was up. He turned the
volume to maximum, ferreted through the building with one ear cocked,
and found a faulty tee connector in no time.