v. 1. [perhaps from the image of a thrown ball bouncing
off a wall] An electronic mail message that is undeliverable and
returns an error notification to the sender is said to 'bounce'.
See also bounce message.
2. [Stanford] To play volleyball.
At the now-demolished D. C. Power Lab building used by the
Stanford AI Lab in the 1970s, there was a volleyball court on the
front lawn. From 5 P.M. to 7 P.M. was the scheduled
maintenance time for the computer, so every afternoon at 5 the
computer would become unavailable, and over the intercom a voice
would cry, "Now hear this: bounce, bounce!" followed by Brian
McCune loudly bouncing a volleyball on the floor outside the
offices of known volleyballers.
3. To engage in sexual
intercourse; prob. from the expression 'bouncing the mattress',
but influenced by Piglet's psychosexually loaded "Bounce on me
too, Tigger!" from the "Winnie-the-Pooh" books. Compare
boink.
4. To casually reboot a system in order to clear up a
transient problem. Reported primarily among VMS users.
5. [IBM] To power cycle a peripheral in order to reset it.
