doohickey

See also: doo-hickey

English

Alternative forms

• dohickey, do-hickey, doo-hickey, do-hinky, doohinky

Etymology

First attested 1914, of uncertain origin, probably from doodad + hickey.

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈduhɪki/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

doohickey (plural doohickeys)

1. (slang, originally US) A thing (used in a vague way to refer to something whose name one does not know or cannot recall)

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:thingy

   What does this doohickey do?

   • 1981 October 27, William E. Geist, “HUNTING FOR DOOHICKEYS”, in The New York Times‎^[1]:

     Customers will ask for "gizmos" and "what-cha-ma-call-its" and "doohickeys," and make crude drawings on paper bags of what it is they think they need.

   • 2019 December 8, Scott Tobias, “‘Watchmen’ Season 1, Episode 8 Recap: Chicken or Egg?”, in The New York Times‎^[2]:

     Besides, the show has invented a doohickey that makes it possible for Dr. Manhattan to exist as Calvin, a stable and supportive husband and father with no memory of his life as Jon Osterman, who can live out those 10 years as something close to a human being.

Translations

a thing

• Dutch: dinges (nl) m
• Esperanto: umo (eo)
• Finnish: vehje (fi), vekotin (fi), hilavitkutin (fi)
• French: truc (fr) m, machin (fr) m
• Georgian: please add this translation if you can
• German: Dingsbums (de), Dingsda (de)
• Italian: coso (it)
• Maori: mea
• Polish: wihajster (pl) m
• Portuguese: coisa (pt) f, negócio (pt) m, trem (pt) m, troço (pt) m, treco (pt) m
• Russian: штуко́вина (ru) f (štukóvina)
• Serbo-Croatian: stvarčica (sh) f
• Swedish: grunka (sv), mackapär (sv), manick (sv), mojäng (sv), pryl (sv), sak (sv), ting (sv), tingest (sv)
• Tok Pisin: samting (tpi)

Further reading

• “dohickey n.”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang, Jonathon Green, 2016–present
• placeholder name on Wikipedia.Wikipedia