pong

• IPA^(key): /pɒŋ/

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɒŋ

Probably from Romani pan (“to stink”).

pong (plural pongs)

1. (UK, Australia, New Zealand, slang) A stench, a bad smell.
   • 1992, Bryce Courtenay, Tandia, Volume 1, 2011, Read How You Want, page 109,

     She sniffed, squiffing up her nose. ‘What a pong! Do they all smell like this?’

   • 1998, Catherine Fox, Heaven′s Scent: Third Way, page 13:

     I can remember calling round once and when she answered the door I was greeted by an unmistakable, noxious pong. “I can smell gas!”
     I said. “Oh, have I left the ring on?” she asked vaguely.

   • 2000, Susan Sallis, 2011, unnumbered page,

     ‘I see what you mean about the pong. I couldn′t smell it on myself but I can smell it on you!’

   • 2009, Martin Fine, The Devil′s Fragrance, page [http://books.google.com.au/books?id=bTRIWZPD_Q0C&pg=PA109&dq=%22pong%22:

     If you want to empty a crowded room strong body pong will usually do the trick.

• pongy

pong (third-person singular simple present pongs, present participle ponging, simple past and past participle ponged)

1. (UK, Australia, New Zealand, slang) To stink, to smell bad.
   • 1997, Taufiq Ismail, David M. E. Roskies (translator and editor), Stop Thief!, Black Clouds Over the Isle of Gods and Other Modern Indonesian Short Stories, page 97,

     On she walked at a crawling pace, ponging of sweat, drops of mucus and blood falling between her feet.

   • 2009, Susan Brocker, Saving Sam, HarperCollins, New Zealand, unnumbered page,

     The place ponged, like the smell of stale cat pee.

   • 2010, Robin Easton, Naked in Eden: My Adventure and Awakening in the Australian Rainforest, page 63:

     “ […] That toothless bloke ponged. Couldn′t you smell him? He smelled like a bloody pub floor at closing time.”

   • 2011, Victor Pemberton, We′ll Sing at Dawn, 2012, eBook, Headline Publishing, unnumbered page,

     […] and this evening, Eileen Perkins′s daughter Rita ponged with the smell of cheap carbolic soap, after a late-afternoon visit to the public baths down Hornsey Road.

2. (slang, theater, derogatory) To deliver a line of a play in an arch, suggestive or unnatural way, so as to draw undue attention to it.
3. (slang, theater, intransitive) To invent a line of dialogue when one has forgotten the actual line.
   • 2016, Jim Davis, European Theatre Performance Practice, 1750–1900:

     […] 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."

• (stink): reek, smell, stink

From ping, via the pairing of ping-pong.

pong (plural pongs)

1. (networking) A packet sent in reply to a ping, thereby indicating the presence of a host.

pong (plural pongs)

1. (mahjong) Alternative form of pung

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

pong

1. ladle made from a gourd (used especially for rice beer)

From Hokkien 碰 (phòng).

pong

1. (mahjong) A pung; a set of three identical tiles.
2. (playground games) the word that the tagged it says when catching a playmate, as in the game of hide and seek.