bounce v. 1. [common; 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. 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. 3. To casually reboot a system in order to clear up a transient problem (possibly editing a configuration file in the process, if it is one that is only re-read at boot time). Reported primarily among VMS and Unix users. 4. [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.