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• ping-pong
  ping-pong

  verb (used with object)

  to move back and forth or transfer rapidly from one locale, job, etc., to another; switch.
• Ping-Pong
  Ping-Pong

  table tennis.

ping-pong

¹ American  

[ping-pong, -pawng] / ˈpɪŋˌpɒŋ, -ˌpɔŋ /

verb (used with object)

1. to move back and forth or transfer rapidly from one locale, job, etc., to another; switch.

   The patient was ping-ponged from one medical specialist to another.

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verb (used without object)

1. to go back and forth; change rapidly or regularly; shift; bounce.

   For ten years the foreign correspondent ping-ponged between London and Paris.

Ping-Pong ² American  

[ping-pong, -pawng] / ˈpɪŋˌpɒŋ, -ˌpɔŋ /

Trademark.

1. table tennis.

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Ping-Pong British  

/ ˈpɪŋˌpɒŋ /

noun

1. Also called: ping pong.  another name for table tennis

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Etymology

Origin of ping-pong

First recorded in 1900–05

Example Sentences

“He seems to have been called by every honorary title imaginable,” noted one biographer—“the country’s leading novelist, philosopher, educator, designer, agricultural experimenter, architect, industrial management specialist, general and ping pong trainer.”

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 11, 2026

The canteen, where staff were playing ping pong and pool just 24 hours earlier, was transformed into a nightclub with more than 400 guests.

From BBC • Feb. 24, 2026

A ping pong ball at top speed travels over 70 miles an hour — so fast it could zip across Manhattan in less than two minutes.

From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 23, 2025

Conservative peer Lord Sharpe, the shadow business and trade minister, had tabled an amendment to the Employment Rights Bill during its latest stage of parliamentary ping pong in the House of Lords.

From BBC • Dec. 16, 2025

At last the people seized upon ping pong, and it became common.

From As A Chinaman Saw Us Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home by Gratton, Henry Pearson