ping-pong

[ping-pong, -pawng]Informal.

verb (used with object)

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.

verb (used without object)

to go back and forth; change rapidly or regularly; shift; bounce: For ten years the foreign correspondent ping-ponged between London and Paris.

Origin of ping-pong

First recorded in 1900–05

Ping-Pong

[ping-pong, -pawng]

Trademark.

table tennis.

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Examples from the Web for ping-pong

Contemporary Examples of ping-pong

Anyone with the intellect of a ping-pong ball should understand how opportunistic that whistleblowing looks.
An Ivy League Frat Boy’s Shallow Repentance
Stefan Beck
November 24, 2014
The Ping-Pong stadium was a tiny isolated bubble of bounty in the middle of a country shocked into silence.
How to Hide a Famine with Ping-Pong
Nicholas Griffin
January 9, 2014
The Chinese public had waited so long for their Ping-Pong Spring that they bellowed constant approval of the rout.
How to Hide a Famine with Ping-Pong
Nicholas Griffin
January 9, 2014
Who would have thought a game of ping-pong could have such huge ramifications in China in 1971?
The Irish Sports Betting Company Sending Dennis Rodman to North Korea
Tom Sykes
December 19, 2013
In my library/study/barn there is a Ping-Pong table, on which I can pile working books and spread maps.
Antony Beevor: How I Write
Noah Charney
June 13, 2012

Historical Examples of ping-pong

At the top of the plate is the beginning of a ping-pong net.
The Child's Rainy Day Book
Mary White
This is only a little game of "Ping-pong" in progress, and some of the balls are missing!
Mr. Punch's Book of Sport
Various
She was the girl who was teaching the poet the elements of ping-pong.
The Disentanglers
Andrew Lang
The table decorations consisted of two ping-pong nets stretched diagonally across the table.
Bright Ideas for Entertaining
Mrs. Herbert B. Linscott
What instantly comes to your mind,” says my college friend who is “taking” Psychology, “when I say the word ‘ping-pong’?
Life's Minor Collisions
Frances Warner

British Dictionary definitions for ping-pong

Ping-Pong

noun

trademark another name for table tennis Also called: ping pong

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for ping-pong

1900, as Ping-Pong, trademark for table tennis equipment (Parker Brothers). Both words are imitative of the sound of the ball hitting a hard surface; from ping + pong (attested from 1823). It had a "phenomenal vogue" in U.S. c.1900-1905.

1901, from ping-pong (n.). In the figurative sense from 1952. Related: Ping-ponged; ping-ponging.