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ding

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Pronunciation

ding1 strike; dent

Etymology

The verb meaning to strike is inherited from Middle English dingen, also dengen.[2][3] Its source is disputed.[4] Etymonline, Klein and the Shorter Oxford take it as probably borrowed from Old Norse dengja (“to hammer, whet a scythe”),[5][6][7] compare Old Swedish dängia (“to strike, beat, hammer”) and Danish dænge (“to beat, bang”),[4][7] which the OED explains as a causative of a Germanic strong verb.[4] The MED, Merriam-Webster and Dictionary.com derive it from an unrecorded Old English *dingan, related to dencgan (“to beat, strike”),[2][8][3] and the OED gives this as the second possibility.[4] Kroonen reconstructs Proto-Germanic *dingwaną (“to beat”), with diunga and Middle High German tingelen (“to knock, hammer”), as a strong verb probably of imitative origin.[9][1] Klein relates it to Old High German tangol (“hammer”) and German dengeln (“to hammer, beat”).[6][4] The OED suggests that, if it was borrowed from a weak Norse verb, its strong past forms “dang” and “dung” arose on the model of verbs like sing and ring.[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

To beat or strike with heavy blows: about 1300, in Havelok the Dane.[4][2]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English the verb meant to beat, scourge or overcome in fighting, and it was used of storms beating on someone.[2] From about 1380 it also meant to smash, and in the phrase ding to death to kill;[4] before 1400 it was also used for knocking or driving something in a given direction.[4] Johnson (1755) gave "to dash with violence" and "to impress with force", and also an intransitive use, "to bluster, to huff", which he called "a low word".[10] The verb lived on mostly in Scotland and the north of England, where it kept the strong forms “dang” and “dung”;[11][7] Merriam-Webster still labels the senses "strike" and "throw violently" dialectal.[8] The noun, a heavy blow, followed in Richard Rolle's Psalter (before 1500) and is also now mainly Scottish and regional.[4][7] American usage gave both words new life in the 20th century: a ding was a dent or small blemish from 1922,[4] to ding a car door is to cause minor surface damage to it,[8] and Etymonline dates the meaning "dent" to the 1960s.[5] College slang of the late 1940s used ding for a rejection of a candidate,[4][12] and since 1986 it has also meant a mark against someone or a critical comment.[4]

Timeline

  • c. 1300 – to beat or strike with heavy blows.[4][2]
  • c. 1380 – to smash, and to kill in the phrase ding to death (obsolete).[4]
  • before 1500 – noun, a heavy blow.[4]
  • 1614 – to throw violently, to hurl.[4]
  • 1755 – Johnson: to dash with violence; to bluster.[10]
  • 1907 – American slang, to hit with a bullet.[4]
  • 1922 – noun, a dent or minor blemish.[4]
  • 1949 – noun, a rejection of a candidate.[4][12]
  • 1986 – noun, a critical comment or mark against someone.[4]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To cause minor surface damage to; to dent: She dinged the bumper backing out of the garage.[8][5]
  2. (dialectal) To strike, beat or knock.[8][4][7]
  3. (dialectal) To throw violently; to dash or fling.[8][4]

Noun

  1. A small dent or other minor surface damage.[8][4][7]
  2. (dialectal) A blow or knock.[8][4][7]
  3. A rejection, or a critical comment or mark against someone.[4][12]

ding2 ringing sound

Etymology

The ringing sound is imitative of a small bell.[4][7][6][8] Barnhart and Etymonline think the verb may have been taken from ding-dong,[13][5] and the OED notes the earlier noun “ding-ding”.[4] The American Heritage Dictionary sees it as partly an alteration of din,[14] and the OED and Collins say it was influenced by that word.[4][15] Weekley thought it perhaps the same word as the verb meaning to strike, and the two ideas meet in a ding-dong struggle;[16] the OED notes that some later uses of that verb are associated with this one, because of the sound of struck metal.[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Representing the ringing sound of a bell: about 1578, as an interjection.[4] The Shorter Oxford dates the verb, in the sense "to din into a person", to the mid 16th century.[7]

Semantic evolution

Barnhart finds an adverbial use in Shakespeare's As You Like It.[13] The verb meant to din something into someone; from the late 16th century it also meant to speak with tiresome persistence;[7][8] the noun meant a loud prolonged noise, a din, from 1750.[4] The sense of ringing like a bell is recorded from about 1792,[4] and Barnhart and Etymonline date it to 1819, in Washington Irving's Sketch Book.[13][5] The noun for a single bell-like sound followed in 1837,[4] and is now often the alert sound of a computer or phone.[4] From that, since 1994, to ding someone has meant to contact them by text or phone.[4][12]

Timeline

  • c. 1578 – interjection, the ringing of a bell.[4]
  • 1750 – noun, a loud prolonged noise, a din.[4][13]
  • c. 1792 – verb, to resound like a bell.[4]
  • 1819 – to sound as metal does when struck (Irving).[13][5]
  • 1837 – noun, a ringing sound like that of a bell.[4]
  • 1857 – verb, to ring a bell.[4]
  • 1994 – verb, to contact someone by text or phone.[4]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To make a ringing sound like a bell; to clang.[8][15][4]
  2. To ring a bell or make it sound.[15][4]
  3. To repeat something tiresomely; to din it into someone.[8][7][15]
  4. (informal) To contact someone by text message or phone.[4][12]

Noun

  1. A ringing sound like that of a bell, or one imitating it, as on a computer.[8][15][4]

Interjection

  1. Used to represent the sound of a bell.[4][7]
  • dint
  • dangle
  • din
  • ding-dong
  • dong
  • ting

Usage notes

Several other words are spelled ding.[4][12] In Australian slang a ding is a party, probably from wingding;[7][15][12] in slang it is also a fool, shortened from dingbat or ding-a-ling, and the penis, from ding-dong or dingus.[4][12] A Chinese bronze vessel with three or four legs, borrowed from Chinese, is also a ding (1904), and Ding ware is a Chinese porcelain named after a prefecture where it was made.[4] Ding is also a mild euphemism for damn, in American English from 1835 (Ding it all!)[12] and in the dialects of Scotland and northern England.[11]

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  3. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  6. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  9. ^ Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  10. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  11. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  12. ^ a b c d e f g h i Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  13. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  14. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  15. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  16. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray