乒 (pīng): (onomatopoeia) ping, ding (shar…

Meanings

1 (onomatopoeia) ping, ding (sharp metallic sound)
2 short for 乒乓 / 乒乓球 (table tennis)

Characters

乒

pīng

ping (onomatopoeia); table tennis (abbr.)

Examples

乒的一声，子弹打在铁皮上。

Pīng de yì shēng, zǐdàn dǎ zài tiěpí shàng.

Ping! The bullet struck the metal sheet.

他是国家乒队的成员。

Tā shì guójiā Pīng duì de chéngyuán.

He is a member of the national table-tennis team.

Tips

memory

Look at the character: 乒 is 兵 (soldier) with the right leg cut off; its mate 乓 (pāng) has the left leg cut. The pair is a visual pun — 'soldier missing a leg' for the ping-pong sound. The sport 乒乓球 became China's 国球 (national ball) after the 1971 'ping-pong diplomacy' opened US-China relations.

Components

radical

丿 piě

left-falling stroke

The single left-falling stroke at the bottom is the indexing radical and the only thing distinguishing 乒 from 乓. Read it visually as the lone surviving leg of 兵 (soldier) — 乒 lost its right foot, 乓 lost its left, mimicking the pock-pock of ping-pong.

semantic

丘 qiū

hill; mound

丘 sits on top, supplying the bulk of the shape. 乒 is a graphic-pun derivative: take 兵 (soldier) and chip away the lower-left foot stroke, leaving a 丘-like body that captures the sound of one paddle hitting a ball. Pairs with 乓 (the missing-right-foot twin).