{"id":2801,"date":"2026-06-14T20:23:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T00:23:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/create.richmond.edu\/writing\/?p=2801"},"modified":"2026-06-14T20:26:43","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T00:26:43","slug":"word-of-the-week-doohickey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/create.richmond.edu\/writing\/2026\/06\/14\/word-of-the-week-doohickey\/","title":{"rendered":"Word of the Week! Doohickey"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Cat<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Editor’s Note:<\/strong> Reader Michael Stern authored this post for our summer enjoyment. Consider how many “doodad” or “doololly” or “doojolly” words relate to this neologism. Etymology Online does not give this origin but notes it to be an American neologism from 1914. Now on to Michael’s post.<\/em><\/p>\n

Merriam-Webster\u2019s Collegiate Dictionary defines doohickey as a \u201cdoodad,\u201d which is itself defined as \u201can often small article whose common name is unknown or forgotten: gadget.\u201d The OED defines it<\/a> as \u201cany small object, esp. mechanical; a \u2018thingummy.\u201d Neither offer a useful derivation but I happened upon what might be a reasonable and interesting one.<\/p>\n

On July 9, 1776, Virginia patriots attacked Lord Dunmore and his supporters who were holed up on Gwynn\u2019s Island in Chesapeake Bay. Embedded with the patriots was a French artillery captain who had joined the Continental Army. He built an experimental wooden mortar which was put to use in the attack, only to explode, killing him. He was the only casualty on the patriot side. His name was Dohicky Arundel<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Perhaps Arundel\u2019s given name became a synonym for a nameless contraption (although more than a hundred years would pass before its first recorded use in Kansas Farmer in 1908, according to the OED.)<\/p>\n

My source for this information is A Perfect Frenzy: A Royal Governor, His Black Allies, and the Crisis That Spurred the American Revolution<\/em><\/a> by Andrew Lawler. My wife and I attended a lecture by Lawler at UR a few months ago and, needless to say, we purchased his book.<\/p>\n

Send us words, thingamabobs, whatchamacallits, linguistic kluges, and metaphors worth covering. Email me (jessid -at- richmond -dot- edu) or leave a comment below. Want to write a guest entry? Let me know!<\/p>\n

See all of our Metaphors of the Month\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0and Words of the Week\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Creative-Commons Image: Sleepypete’s blog<\/a>. Thanks, Pete.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor’s Note: Reader Michael Stern authored this post for our summer enjoyment. Consider how many “doodad” or “doololly” or “doojolly” words relate to this neologism. Etymology Online does not give this origin but notes it to be an American neologism from 1914. Now on to Michael’s post. Merriam-Webster\u2019s Collegiate Dictionary defines doohickey as a \u201cdoodad,\u201d … Continue reading Word of the Week! Doohickey<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6904,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[87405,1172,87417,40197],"tags":[2522],"class_list":["post-2801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-etymology","category-language","category-neologism","category-vocabulary","tag-word-of-the-week"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6904"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2801"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/create.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2801\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2806,"href":"https:\/\/create.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2801\/revisions\/2806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}