doohickey
Americannoun
-
doohickeys
plural
noun
Usage
What does doohickey mean? Doohickey is a very informal word for an object whose name you don’t know, have forgotten, or can’t recall at the moment. It’s often used to refer to gadgets or parts of things that might not even have a commonly known name, as in Before we attach the bracket, we have to insert this doohickey here. Doohickey is sometimes used even if you know the name of the thing you’re referring to, such as to be funny or to downplay the importance or value of an object, as in What, these old doohickeys? I’ve got a whole boxful of ’em. Take as many as you want. Doohickey is often used with a modifier describing the kind of thing, as in Where’s that plastic doohickey?There are several other similarly informal words that are used in the same way, including doodad, dingus, thingy, thingamajig, thingamabob, whachamacallit, and whatsit. Example: My kids got me one of those doohickeys that track your steps. What’s it called? A stepometer?
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of doohickey
Explanation
A doohickey is a "whatchamacallit" or a "doodad." In other words, it's something whose exact name you don't know or can't remember, like the doohickey you use to pry open that drawer that always sticks shut. You can add doohickey to your list of all-purpose placeholder words, along with "thingamabob" and "gizmo." These terms are useful when the actual name of the item escapes you: "Hand me that doohickey on the table. Not that one, the little doohickey that screws in this bolt!" Doohickey was first used as U.S. Navy slang in the early 20th century and defined in 1925 as "an airman’s term for small, detachable fittings."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
But what happens when one of your articles goes viral — not for its content but rather for how an AI doohickey swallowed up what you wrote and upchucked a controversial summation?
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 7, 2025
For the hard-to-reach places — the flower beds and under the azaleas — he has a little handheld doohickey, like a garden center jack-in-box.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 3, 2022
Even if it’s a doohickey without any particular monetary value.
From New York Times ● Mar. 17, 2021
Instead The Clasp takes its name from a jeweler’s doohickey, a humble mechanism of connection and release.
From Slate ● Oct. 8, 2015
To activate widget A, you insert doohickey B into slot C. Or you can delete the you, since it’s understood to be the subject.
From "Woe Is I" by Patricia T. O'Conner
For years, as an early-warning alert system, the county agricultural people had been hanging Medfly traps hither and thither among our pretty, fructiferous trees — little A-frame-shaped cardboard doohickeys with a dab of fly attractant.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 15, 2024
It’s one of those little mechanical doohickeys where you push it in, then it pops out.
From The Verge ● Mar. 29, 2022
We all spent hours and hours and hours, standing at the edge of the ocean, hurling these little plastic doohickeys into the ocean and watching them surf.
From Slate ● Jun. 17, 2019
Best-case scenario: The twins would be delivered six weeks early and live in a box with gadgets and doohickeys connected to their bodies for the first few weeks or months of their lives.
From Salon ● Feb. 15, 2013
Little plastic doohickeys and thingamabobs cover many surfaces.
From New York Times ● May 13, 2011
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
