doohickey
a small object
TRANSLATION
doohickey = Dingsbums, Dings (etwas, dessen Namen der sprechenden Person gerade nicht einfällt oder dessen Namen die sprechende Person nicht kennt)
STATISTICS
IN THE PRESS
“Journalism schools teach that writers should report the news, not be the news. 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?”
Gustavo Arellano — Los Angeles Times (7th March 2025)
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“But there’s an earnest quality to the hobby that I ended up finding rather endearing. I started looking forward to hearing these fans talk about the joy their obsession gives them, nerding out on the machines that they’ve bought because it’s got a dual boiler this or a burr grinder that or a push-button DOOHICKEY where they can ‘dial in the grind’ or follow real-time charts to see their ‘workflow’. “
James Gaddy — Bloomberg (23rd March 2024)
Did you
know?
doohickey
noun (chiefly American)
- a small object whose name you can't remember or don't know
- a small object or gadget, especially one whose precise name the speaker cannot recall
Cambridge Dictionary, Oxford Languages
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WORD ORIGIN
“Doohickey" is a portmanteau (blend) of two other words meaning "gadget": "doodad" and "hickey". It first appeared in the 1940s.
The word "hickey" was used for various small objects or gadgets. "Doodad" initially referred to ornamental items, either around the house or on clothing, but over time gained the sense of minor instrumental items like attachments or implements.
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NAMING THE NAMELESS
English excels at naming things it can't name. When vocabulary fails, we create delightful nonsense words like "thingamajig”, "whatsit”, and “doohickey”. These placeholder terms prove that sometimes the most precise language is admitting we don't know the precise language
Helga & Paul Smith
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SYNONYMS
accessory, apparatus, appliance, article, contraption, contrivance, device, dingbat, dingus, do-dad, doofer, DOOHICKEY, doojigger, doodad, doodah, fandangle, fixture, gadget, gaff, gear, gimcrack, gimmick, gismo, gizmo, grabber, gubbins, hickey, hootenanny, implement, instrument, jigger, jobby, knickknack, mechanism, object, oddment, outfit, piece of kit, rig, rigging, Rube Goldberg device, tackle, thing, thingamabob, thingamajig, thingamawhatsit, thingummy, tool, what-do-you-call-it, what-is-it, whatchamacallit, whatnot, whatsis, whatsit, whatsitsname, widget, widgetizer, widgety-thing
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SMUGGLE OWAD into an English conversation today, say something like:
“A good international synonym for the American word DOOHICKEY is ‘whatsitsname’ because it says exactly that an object is not nameable.”
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