:bounce: /v./ 1. [perhaps by analogy to a bouncing check] 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. The
now-demolished {D. C. Power Lab} building used by the Stanford
AI Lab in the 1970s had 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 would come over the intercom the
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
Roo's psychosexually loaded "Try bouncing me, 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. [VM/CMS programmers]
*Automatic* warm-start of a machine after an error. "I
logged on this morning and found it had bounced 7 times during the
night" 6. [IBM] To {power cycle} a peripheral in order to reset
it.

:bounce message: /n./ [Unix] Notification message returned to sender
by a site unable to relay {email} to the intended {{Internet
address}} recipient or the next link in a {bang path} (see
{bounce}, sense 1). Reasons might include a nonexistent or
misspelled username or a {down} relay site. Bounce messages can
themselves fail, with occasionally ugly results; see {sorcerer's
apprentice mode} and {software laser}. The terms `bounce
mail' and `barfmail' are also common.