doodad
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See also: doo-dad
English[edit]
Alternative forms[edit]
Etymology[edit]
Unknown; attested since the 1880s. Compare earlier daud (“a piece of something”), later doohickey (“a thing (whose name one cannot recall)”).
Noun[edit]
doodad (plural doodads)
- Used to refer to something whose name one cannot recall: an unspecified device, gadget, part, or thing.
- Synonyms: (Britain) doodah; see also Thesaurus:thingy
- My mom has a clever doodad for peeling oranges.
- 1922, Sinclair Lewis, chapter I, in Babbitt, New York, N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace and Company, OCLC 844076792, section IV, page 11:
- Of course I eat an apple every evening—an apple a day keeps the doctor away—but still, you ought to have more prunes, and not all these fancy doodads.
- 1939, Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep:
- The room was too big, the ceiling was too high, the doors were too tall, and the white carpet that went from wall to wall looked like a fresh fall of snow at Lake Arrowhead. There were full-length mirrors and crystal doodads all over the place.
Translations[edit]
thingy — see thingy
References[edit]
- Oxford English Dictionary, 1884–1928, and First Supplement, 1933.
- “doodad”, in Merriam–Webster Online Dictionary.
- Douglas Harper (2001–2022), “doodad”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.