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You are here: Home / Language / Where do the words thingum, thingumajig, thingumbob, thingummy come from and What do they mean?

Where do the words thingum, thingumajig, thingumbob, thingummy come from and What do they mean?

June 16, 2020 by Karen Hill

The words thingum, thingumajig, thingumbob, thingummy are meaningless extensions of the word thing in its special use as a term to denote an object or person which the speaker cannot or will not name specifically.

Thingum was first recorded in the late seventeenth century, the other forms followed (not in order) in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

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Filed Under: Language

About Karen Hill

Karen Hill is a freelance writer, editor, and columnist. Born in New York, her work has appeared in the Examiner, Yahoo News, Buzzfeed, among others.

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