ding

noun

1. (informal)Very minor damage caused by being struck; a small dent or chip.

   “Mike hit the bottom and picked up a little ding on his head.”

   “If you surf regularly, then you're going to ding your board. Here's a rough guide on how to repair them... If the ding is on the rail, run tape across the ding conforming to the rail curve, leaving a gap to pour in resin and make sure it is sealed to prevent resin escaping and forming dribbles.”

2. (colloquial)A rejection.

   “I just got my first ding letter.”

3. The high-pitched resonant sound of a bell.
4. (colloquial, especially)The act of levelling up.
5. An ancient Chinese vessel with legs and a lid.
6. (Hong-Kong)An indigenous inhabitant of the New Territories entitled to the building a village house under the Small House Policy.
7. (Australia, Western, ethnic, offensive, slur)an Italian person, specifically an Italian Australian

verb

1. (transitive)To hit or strike.
2. To dash; to throw violently.

   “to ding the book a coit's distance from him”

   “The butcher's axe (like great Alcides' bat) / Dings deadly downe ten thousand thousand flat.”

3. (transitive)To inflict minor damage upon, especially by hitting or striking.

   “If you surf regularly, then you're going to ding your board.”

4. (colloquial, transitive)To fire or reject.

   “His top school dinged him last week.”

5. (colloquial, transitive)To deduct, as points, from (somebody), in the manner of a penalty; to penalize.

   “My bank dinged me three bucks for using their competitor's ATM.”

   “[…] [E]mployees don't feel like they're going to get dinged on performance reviews because they had the same goals as a guy who had been there all 12 months with no leave.”

6. (transitive)To mishit (a golf ball).
7. (Scotland)To fall heavily and continually, with great force.

   “The night turn'd dark an' dang on rain, […]”

   “An awfu' show'r o' sna' and drift / As ever dang down frae the lift; / Right wild an' monstrous Boreas roar'd.”

   “It's dingin' on, isn't?”

8. (intransitive)To make a high-pitched resonant sound like a bell.

   “The fretful tinkling of the convent bell evermore dinging among the mountain echoes.”

   “These were succeeded by anchor and chain-cable forges, where sledgehammers were dinging upon iron all day long.”

9. (transitive)To keep repeating; impress by reiteration, with reference to the monotonous striking of a bell.

   “If I'm to have any good, let it come of itself; not keep dinging it, dinging it into one so.”

10. (colloquial, especially, intransitive)To level up.

name

1. (historical)A prefecture of imperial China within present-day Hebei under the Northern Wei, Sui, and Tang dynasties, with its seat at Dingzhou.
2. (historical)A county of Republican China in Hebei Province.
3. A surname from Mandarin or Eastern Min.