Thingum

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A thing whose name you cannot remember or do not know
2. An object or item for which you have forgotten or do not have the proper name
3. Something whose actual name eludes you or is unknown to you

Etymology: Thingum is a clipped form of "thingumbob" or "thingummy," and its story is mostly one of playful word-making. The likeliest ancestor is "thingum-thangum," a reduplicated compound built on "thing." English has a whole family of such pairs, where a rhyming or alternating tail is bolted onto a base word, as in "crinkum-crankum," "harum-scarum," and "trinkum-trankum." Speakers reach for these when they want a word that sounds lively and a little absurd. Over time the doubled form shrank. The first half was dropped, leaving a short, handy noun for something whose name has slipped away, a gadget or doohickey. The word is used mostly in speech, to stand in for a nameless object, and it carries the same cheerful vagueness as the longer forms it came from.

Synonyms: thingummy, thingamabob, whatsit