ping-pong
[ping-pong, -pawng]Informal.
- 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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- to go back and forth; change rapidly or regularly; shift; bounce: For ten years the foreign correspondent ping-ponged between London and Paris.
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Origin of ping-pong
First recorded in 1900–05
Ping-Pong
[ping-pong, -pawng]
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Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for ping-pong
Contemporary Examples
Anyone with the intellect of a ping-pong ball should understand how opportunistic that whistleblowing looks.
The Ping-Pong stadium was a tiny isolated bubble of bounty in the middle of a country shocked into silence.
The Chinese public had waited so long for their Ping-Pong Spring that they bellowed constant approval of the rout.
Who would have thought a game of ping-pong could have such huge ramifications in China in 1971?
In my library/study/barn there is a Ping-Pong table, on which I can pile working books and spread maps.
Historical Examples
At the top of the plate is the beginning of a ping-pong net.
The Child's Rainy Day BookMary White
This is only a little game of "Ping-pong" in progress, and some of the balls are missing!
Mr. Punch's Book of SportVarious
She was the girl who was teaching the poet the elements of ping-pong.
The DisentanglersAndrew Lang
The table decorations consisted of two ping-pong nets stretched diagonally across the table.
Bright Ideas for EntertainingMrs. 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 CollisionsFrances Warner
Ping-Pong
- trademark another name for table tennis Also called: ping pong
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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
n.
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.
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v.
1901, from ping-pong (n.). In the figurative sense from 1952. Related: Ping-ponged; ping-ponging.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper