[syn: pink, ping, knock]
3. make a short high-pitched sound;
- Example: "the bullet pinged when they struck the car"
4. contact, usually in order to remind of something;
- Example: "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;
- Example: "ping your machine in the office"
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
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]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Ping \Ping\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Pinged; p. pr. & vb. n.
Pinging.]
To make the sound called ping.
[1913 Webster]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
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
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
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, ping,
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"
V.E.R.A. -- Virtual Entity of Relevant Acronyms (February 2016):
PING
Packet InterNet Groper (ICMP, TCP/IP)
The Jargon File (version 4.4.7, 29 Dec 2003):
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.
The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (30 December 2018):
ping
Packet InterNet Groper
ping command
pinging
(ping, originally contrived to match
submariners' term for the sound of a returned sonar pulse) A
program written in 1983 by Mike Muuss (who also wrote TTCP)
used to test reachability of destinations by sending them one,
or repeated, ICMP echo requests and waiting for replies.
Since ping works at the IP level its server-side is often
implemented entirely within the operating system kernel
and is thus the lowest level test of whether a remote host is
alive. Ping will often respond even when higher level,
TCP-based services cannot.
Sadly, Mike Muuss was killed in a road accident on 2000-11-20.
The term is also used as a verb: "Ping host X to see if it is
up."
The Unix command "ping" can be used to do this and to
measure round-trip delays.
The funniest use of "ping" 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. Using the sound
recording feature on the NeXT, he wrote a script that
repeatedly invoked ping, listened for an echo, and played back
the recording on each returned packet. This 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.
Ping did not stand for "Packet InterNet Groper", Dave Mills
offered this backronym expansion some time later.
See also ACK, ENQ, traceroute, spray.
The Story of the Ping Program
(http://ftp.arl.mil/~mike/ping.html).
Unix manual page: ping(8).
(2005-06-22)