Doohickey / duːhɪki / noun

Definition: Doohickey is a North American informal word with a unique meaning. People use this term to refer to a small-sized gadget or object, especially one that you or any other speaker cannot remember its exact name.

In other words, a doohickey refers to something that someone uses in an unclear way to refer to something else whose name they cannot remember at the moment. So, if you do not know the name of something or have forgotten its name, you can refer to it as a doohickey.

Etymology: Etymology: The term doohickey came into being in the early 20th century. It came from two English words, doodad and hickey. Servicemen initially used this word as slang. A common belief of this word’s etymology is that it derives from a leaf’s left mark after dew evaporation.

So, this mark was essentially similar to the definition of a hickey, which referred to skin blemish. Due to the lack of a common word for such marking, people referred to this dew mark as ‘dew hickey.’ With time, the term evolved to doohickey. Today, people use it to refer to anything that one couldn’t identify with its name.

In a Sentence

I would prefer to have a doohickey in the bench’s central position.

This garage is full of electronic accessories and other precious doohickeys.

The doohickey at the showground is one of the latest inventions.

Synonyms 

Dingus, Doodad

Antonyms 

The antonym for Doohickey is the object’s actual name.