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"

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]

Ping \Ping\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Pinged; p. pr. & vb. n.
   Pinging.]
   To make the sound called ping.
   [1913 Webster]

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

PING
       Packet InterNet Groper (ICMP, TCP/IP)
       

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.

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>.

   Unix manual page: ping(8).

   (2005-06-22)