ICMP is Internet Control Message Protocol, a network layer protocol of the TCP/IP suite used by hosts and gateways to send notification of datagram problems back to the sender. It uses the echo test / reply to test whether a destination is reachable and responding. It also handles both control and error messages.
ICMP means Internet Control Message Protocol and is always coupled with the IP protocol (There are 2 ICMP variants one for IPv4 and one for IPv6.) echo request and echo response are the two operation codes of ICMP used to implement ping.