pong
/pɔŋ/UK/pɒŋ/
pong noun: a stench, a bad smell. Also the alternative form of pung.
Noun (1)
pong (plural pongs)
- A stench, a bad smell.
- 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.1970, Richard Carpenter, Catweazle, Harmondsworth: Puffin Books, page 21
- She sniffed, squiffing up her nose. ‘What a pong! Do they all smell like this?’1992, Bryce Courtenay, Tandia, Volume 1, 2011, Read How You Want, page 109
Verb
pong (third-person singular simple present pongs, present participle ponging, simple past and past participle ponged)
- To stink, to smell bad.
- “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?”1970, Richard Carpenter, Catweazle, Harmondsworth: Puffin Books, page 174
- On she walked at a crawling pace, ponging of sweat, drops of mucus and blood falling between her feet.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
- To deliver a line of a play in an arch, suggestive or unnatural way, so as to draw undue attention to it.
- To invent a line of dialogue when one has forgotten the actual line.
- […] 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."2016, Jim Davis, European Theatre Performance Practice, 1750–1900
Noun (2)
pong (plural pongs)
Proper noun capitalized: Pong
Pong
- 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!2002, André LaMothe, Tricks of the Windows game programming gurus, page 10
- If the US invades Iraq, we'll see action all right, much more than we witnessed with the primitive Pong-ish effects delivered during Gulf War 1.0,2003 March 1, “Gulf War 2.0: The Son Strikes Back”, in Toronto Star
Also used as
pong is also the alternative form of pung.
pong meaning in Hindi, Marathi, Urdu and Bengali
pong in Hindi
- पोंग, पॉंग
pong in Marathi
- पोंग, पॉंग
pong in Urdu
- پونگ, پانگ
pong in Bengali
- পং, পঙ
More languagesFewer languages
- pong in Telugu
- పాంగ్, పొంగ్
- pong in Malayalam
- പോങ്, പോംഗ്, പൊങ്
- pong in Kannada
- ಪಾಂಗ್, ಪೊಂಗ್, ಪೊಂಗ್ಗೆ
- pong in Punjabi
- ਪੋਂਗ, ਪੌਂਗ
- pong in Gujarati
- પોંગ, પૉંગ
- pong in Odia
- ପଙ୍ଗ୍, ପଙ୍ଗ, ପୋଙ୍ଗ
- pong in Nepali
- पोङ, पोंग
Examples of pong in a sentence
- Soon after, two other forms came into play: “anyhow whack” and “anyhow pong”.
- The synaesthetic mix of her deep smile, the scalpy chemical pong of the salon.
- Not doing a timelord, ping ponging back and forth through time.
Synonyms of pong
Forms of pong
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | pongs |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | pongs |
| present participle | ponging |
| past participle | ponged |
| past | ponged |
Origin of pong
Probably from Romani pan (“to stink”).
From ping, via the pairing of ping pong.
Marketing coinage, from ping-pong.
Words formed from pong
Phrases with pong
Words that rhyme with pong
Questions about pong
- What does pong mean?
- Pong means a stench, a bad smell.
- What is pong in Hindi?
- Pong in Hindi is पोंग, पॉंग. See Pong meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is pong?
- Pong can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce pong?
- Pong is pronounced /pɒŋ/ (UK).
- What is the plural of pong?
- The plural of pong is pongs.
Words near pong in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: pong (page history and authors); Pong (page history and authors); pong (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); pong (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); pong (Urdu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); pong (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); pong (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); pong (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); pong (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); pong (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); pong (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); pong (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); pong (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-pong.ogg.
Cite this entry: “pong.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pong. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.