the.com/table tennis

means A sport where two or four players hit a lightweight ball back and forth across a net on a hard table, using small paddles, scoring points when the opponent fails to return it legally.

from The game grew out of 1800s English after-dinner parlor amusement, when bored upper-class diners improvised with whatever was lying around — books stacked as a net, cigar-box lids or cork-covered paddles, a champagne-bottle cork or rounded knob for a ball. It went by jaunty trade names like 'whiff-whaff' and 'gossima' before 'ping-pong' caught on, an onomatopoeic nod to the sound of celluloid ball meeting paddle and table. 'Ping-Pong' was eventually trademarked, which pushed the sport's governing bodies toward the more sober, generic name 'table tennis' to describe the game itself, separate from any one company's brand.