Pong

//pɔŋ// name, noun, verb, slang

name, noun, verb, slang ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A stench, a bad smell. Commonwealth, Ireland, UK, slang

    "Carrot ran past him to get to the barrel first, and peered down at the cowering Catweazle. “No rats, Dad,” he said. “What's that terrible pong, then?” said Mr Bennett, sniffing."

  2. 2
    A packet sent in reply to a ping, thereby indicating the presence of a host.
  3. 3
    Alternative form of pung. alt-of, alternative
  4. 4
    an unpleasant smell wordnet
Verb
  1. 1
    To stink, to smell bad. Commonwealth, Ireland, UK, slang

    "“Give them a drink of this and thy father shall see them as they are. They shall speak from their black hearts.” “Pongs a bit,” sniffed Carrot. “Sure it's not poisonous?”"

  2. 2
    To deliver a line of a play in an arch, suggestive or unnatural way, so as to draw undue attention to it. derogatory, slang
  3. 3
    To invent a line of dialogue when one has forgotten the actual line. intransitive, slang

    "[…] and the “good old crusted” actor, forgetting the lines of the author, used without compunction to cover his discomfiture by inventing a text of his own–an achievement known as "ponging.""

Proper Noun
  1. 1
    An early video game from Atari, resembling ping-pong, in which two players control paddles and attempt to intercept a ball.

    "A good lunar lander or Pong-type game was all you needed to strike it rich!"

Example

More examples

"Ping pong is also called table tennis."

Etymology

Etymology 1

Probably from Romani pan (“to stink”).

Etymology 2

From ping, via the pairing of ping pong.

Etymology 3

Marketing coinage, from ping-pong.

Related phrases

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.