dinges, dingus, noun

/ˈdəŋəs//ˈdɪŋəs/
Origin:
Afrikaans, EnglishShow more Afrikaans dinges; perhaps some quotations reflect the general English dingus.
colloquial
‘Thing-um-a-bob’, ‘what-do-you-call-it’, ‘what’s-his-name’; used where the name of a person or object is unknown or cannot be recalled, or in place of a word which is considered indecent. Cf. ding sense a.
Note:
Current in other parts of the English-speaking world as ‘dingus’, but used only of inanimate objects.
1898 ‘Fossicker’ in Empire 27 Aug. (Pettman)‘Lord! you don’t say so? Where d’ye find the animile?’ ‘Animal, Mr Pike?’ ‘The dingus — the gentleman who lumbers round in space.’
1913 C. Pettman Africanderisms 145Things animate and inanimate in Dutch-speaking districts are all of them dingus if the speaker fails to recall their names.
1916 S. Black in S. Gray Three Plays (1984) 214Van K: Have you got the telephone laid on? Where’s the dingus? Halford: The what? Van K: The dingus — what you talk in.
1930 N. Stevenson Farmers of Lekkerbat 22The Westhuizens, or the dinges, as they were called contemptuously as a family of tarnished origin and of no importance. [Source Note: What’s-his-name.]
1973 E. Prov. Herald 12 June 9There were still a few [old engines] going strong in the district like old Dingus’s and that one of ou Green’s.
1973 L. Dickson in Cape Times 2 July 5South Africans are lucky — they need never be at a loss for a word. In an emergency absolutely anything can be described as a ‘dingus’: ‘Pass me that “dingus”, nurse,’ or ‘It’s that “dingus” in the differential again,’ or even ‘No it’s not that “dingus” — it’s the other “dingus”.’
1976 J. McClure Rogue Eagle 91He’s lucky I’ve got a lighting plant, or that enlarger dinges wouldn’t work.
1987 L. Nkosi Mating Birds 167I remember..an English-speaking white man bellowing at the top of his voice across the vast silent courtroom, ‘Bloody rapist kaffir bastard! Why not cut off his filthy black dingus..!’
1990 P. Mynhardt on TV1, 15 Nov.I sat in the front row, I was so close to the stage that the helicopter almost landed on my dinges.
‘Thing-um-a-bob’, ‘what-do-you-call-it’, ‘what’s-his-name’; used where the name of a person or object is unknown or cannot be recalled, or in place of a word which is considered indecent.
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18981990
Dingaan’s Day, noun phrasen. phr.dinky, nounn.
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