Log in or Sign up
  1. doohickey love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. Informal An unnamed gadget or trinket.

Wiktionary

  1. n. A thing (used in a vague way to refer to something whose name one cannot recall)

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. Any object, usually a tool or other device, whose name is forgotten, or not known.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. something unspecified whose name is either forgotten or not known

Etymologies

  1. First attested 1914, of uncertain origin, probably from doodad + hickey. (Wiktionary)
  2. Perhaps doo(dad) + hickey. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “Get Help: Need to replace a part of your toilet but have no idea how to describe it to the person at the hardware store without using the word doohickey?”

    Macworld

  • “I believe "doohickey" is the correct technical term for that particular control.”

    A Bit More On Music

  • “Training ones either have a plastic or rubbery doohickey attached at the apex of the chopsticks or are actually attached.”

    PhotoHunter: Belated Utensil…. « Mudpuddle

  • “So, here we have President Malcom J. Roebuck telling me, with a look of dead-eyed seriousness, that I can make $25 to $100 per hour by making and selling "metal pin-back badges" made with his $35 button crimper doohickey.”

    Boing Boing

  • “(Assuming the embedded doohickey works; it seems to be a bit temperamental right now.)”

    March On!

  • “And, no, I don't know why the embedded doohickey cuts off the last few seconds of the song.”

    For a Lark

  • “That's due to my genius brother-in-law Reed Richards, Mr. Fantastic, the leader of the FF, and his universal translator doohickey.”

    The Huffington Post: Robert Brenner: "Flame Off!": Hosni Mubarak and the Human Torch

  • “Mine definitely has the musical greetings-card-style doohickey installed as Chris and Allison and meself agreed.”

    On Prologues

  • “Anyway, I stuck it up on the fileshare site I normally use, for this chap to download, so I thought I may as well, punt one of the embedded doohickey things up here, for anyone what's cracked enough to want a copy, or who has a spare thirty-five frickin minutes to listen to me play at being a pirate.”

    Mind Meld, Matelotage and Mutiny

  • “The words she spoke afterward were even more hurtful than the concussion Don might have incurred if that desktop doohickey had actually made contact.”

    The Washington Post: 'Mad Men': Who was this week's empowered heroine -- Allison or Peggy?

Show 10 more examples...

Log in or sign up to add your own related words.

synonyms (26)

Words with the same meaning

  1. thingumbob
  2. whatchamacallit
  3. whachamacallit
  4. thingmabob
  5. thingumajig
  1. dohickey
  2. thingamabob
  3. da kine
  4. gismo
  5. thingummy
  1. gizmo
  2. whaddayacallit
  3. gimmick
  4. thingamajig
  5. hickey
  1. thingy
  2. whatsit
  3. thingummabob
  4. thingmajig
  5. kajigger
  1. thingummajig
  2. thingumabob
  3. dojigger
  4. gubbins
  5. doodah
  1. doodad

hypernyms (1)

Words that are more generic or abstract

  1. stuff

same context (2)

Words that are found in similar contexts

  1. double-strand
  1. break-point

reverse dictionary (1)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. hickey

tags (1)

Free-form, user-generated categorization

  1. placeholder

Log in or sign up to add your own tag.

Wordmap

(beta)

Word visualization

Lists

These user-created lists contain the word ‘doohickey’.

More lists containing ‘doohickey’

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • jmjarmstrong JM offers the warning - beware of oojahs, thingumabobs, doohickies and whatchamacallits as objects without proper names are never to be trusted. Feb 1, 2009

  • slumry wotsit Jul 25, 2007

Tweets

Looking for tweets for doohickey.

‘doohickey’ has been looked up 1700 times, loved by 2 people, added to 24 lists, commented on 2 times, and has a Scrabble score of 22.