How to use zing in a sentence

12 example sentences · noun, verb, interjection

Zing means a short high-pitched humming sound, such as that made by a bullet or vibrating string. Example: “He listened to the zing and echo on the line, the chatter of distant operators, the patches of Morse from aircraft and ships at sea, quickly suppressed.”

Examples of zing by meaning

nounA short high-pitched humming sound, such as that made by a bullet or vibrating string.

He listened to the zing and echo on the line, the chatter of distant operators, the patches of Morse from aircraft and ships at sea, quickly suppressed.1954, Ian Fleming, “True or False?”, in Live and Let Die, London: Pan Books, published 1957, page 87
I heard a zing close to my head and looked up again.1998 March 15, Edward E. Leslie, Desperate Journeys, Abandoned Souls, Mariner Books, →ISBN, →OL, page 387

nounZest or vitality.

To accompany a meal, the fresh Italian lager Poretti is perfect; Erdinger Weisbier, a wheat beer from Germany, is full of zing;2006 May 25, Melinda Houston, “European Bier Cafe - Bar Reviews”, in The Age

verbTo move very quickly, especially while making a high-pitched hum.

We are all a second or two older than an astronaut who has been zinging around the Earth at 18000 miles per hour, because of his or her greater speed and the lack of gravity.2000, Nick Nelson, The Golden Vortex, Conscious Publishing, →ISBN, →OL, page 89
When the caller identified herself as from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle my heart zinged.2005, Donald Hall, The Best Day the Worst Day: Life with Jane Kenyon, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, →ISBN, page 101

verbTo make a zinging noise or sound.

Outside, the crickets and the tree-frogs started to zing and tinkle and the great hawkmoths came to the wire-netting across the windows and clutched it, gazing with trembling ecstasy at the two oil lamps that hung from the cross-beams inside.1954, Ian Fleming, “The Undertaker's Wind”, in Live and Let Die, London: Pan Books, published 1957, page 186

More sentences with zing

"As they say, 'You can’t get high on your own supply,'" Tapper zinged.2020 November 4, Hank Stuever, Election night TV was high anxiety, flat comedy, Washington Post (retrieved 28 July 2021). From the entry high on one's own supply
Pickled onions pack all the zing of a raw onion, but without the onion-y aftertaste.1998 September 30, Sally Patterson, “Eternally versatile onions”, in The Berkshire Eagle, Pittsfield, Mass., page D2. From the entry onion-y
Naimro’s keyboards could sound like zinging dance-club synthesizers, an accordion, a steel drum or the clarinet used in old Martinican biguine music.2007 August 2, Jon Pareles, “A Wide Range of Sounds, From Antillean to Zouk”, in New York Times. From the entry biguine
An area rug can supply the zing of pattern or a swack of color to a room that languishes from blandness .1967, House & Garden - Volume 131, page 150. From the entry swack
Or in the dae, a-vleeren droo The leafy trees, the huosse gookoo Da zing to mowers that da zet Their zives on end, an' stan' to whet.1928, The Pocket Book of Poems and Songs: for the Open Air, page 169. From the entry zive
Tala swore Jameson's face when she went down on him with a mouth still zinging from the sweet and sours she'd necked on the coach looked like he'd contracted something.2022 October 6, Amy Beashel, We Are All Constellations, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN. From the entry sweet-and-sour

Meaning of zing

noun A short high-pitched humming sound, such as that made by a bullet or vibrating string.
noun A witty insult or derogatory remark.
noun Zest or vitality.

Full definition of zing

Questions about zing in a sentence

How do you use zing in a sentence?: Zing is used as a noun, verb and interjection. For example: “He listened to the zing and echo on the line, the chatter of distant operators, the patches of Morse from aircraft and ships at sea, quickly suppressed.”
What is a short sentence with zing?: “I heard a zing close to my head and looked up again.”
What does zing mean?: Zing means a short high-pitched humming sound, such as that made by a bullet or vibrating string.

Adapted from Wiktionary: zing (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this page: “How to use zing in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/zing. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.