thingy

noun

ˈthiŋ-ē 

variants or less commonly thingie

plural thingies

informal

: something that is hard to classify or whose name is unknown or forgotten : thing, thingamajig

During the session in May 1996, the geophysicist's instruments became the "yellow thingy" and the "red thingy," and the … dog became the "brown furry thing."

—M. Lee Goff

"I need a socket thingie," announces a very focused 13-year-old girl. Like a seasoned mechanic, 14-year-old Sophia Rogstad plucks a ratchet off the tool wall and passes it to her classmate.

—Lisa Wogan

… one of those hash brown thingies that looked like a baked buffalo tongue.

—Stephen King

"Does he seem right to you?" Carl said. "Because to me he looks unhinged. And this business about the garage-door thingy? How does that make any sense?"

—Richard Russo

Examples of thingy in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Musk was focused on his own inventions, the self-driving car and humanoid robot thingy which still appears to be mostly robot, Musk has gotten sidetracked in the last year by Twitter, a $44 billion gift to himself. —Chloe Berger, Fortune, 17 May 2023

Rarely do goaltenders get appropriate/due consideration for the Hart — after all, there’s that shiny Vezina thingy to assuage hurt feelings and, of greater consequence in today’s game, there is the long, dominant shadow of Oiler superstar Connor McDavid. —Kevin Paul Dupont, BostonGlobe.com, 11 Mar. 2023

This folding card table thingy is a $1.7 billion solution. —Kyle Whitmire | , al, 15 Mar. 2023

Next, everyone heads out to a club-lodge-cabin thingy that genuinely looks like a good time. —Kyndall Cunningham, Vulture, 16 Apr. 2021

There’s a quiet catharsis in putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) and creating a poem, short story or other literary thingy. —Matt Wake | [e-mail], al, 19 Nov. 2021

So take your weird runner’s goo out of your unfashionable utility-belt thingy, slurp it down, and journey onward with me. —Paul McCallion, Vulture, 12 Aug. 2021

That weird cross-over bow tie thingy: this isn’t a charter school in Bermuda, people. —Jill Kargman, Town & Country, 7 July 2021

Grip the handlebars and in one, flowing movement swing your entire leg up, up, above hip height, above that bar thingy, and flop it over onto the other side. —Emma Brewer, The New Yorker, 22 June 2021

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Word History

Etymology

thing + -y

First Known Use

1927, in the meaning defined above