"doohickey" is a correct and usable word in written English.
It can be used to describe a device or object whose exact name is not known, or whose name is unimportant or doesn't matter. For example, "I can't remember what this doohickey is called, but it's really useful."
The first episode of the Christmas Doctor Who ended – rather pleasingly – with the Master cloning himself globally, using some intergalactic doohickey to turn everyone on the planet (barring those useful to the plot) into another version of himself.
But they were a taciturn, sullen bunch, except for the ticket-holder who won the first of many merchandise prizes — something called a hot-dogger, a doohickey that attaches to a snowmobile's muffler (a component I was surprised to learn existed) and cooks lunch while you drive — and the cash-prize winner, who walked away with half the kitty, just over a thousand dollars.
Next thing you know you'll be talking about the V-chip, the little doohickey that was supposed to keep vulgar culture out of our homes.
With old farmers sitting on a bench in front and glass bottles full of cold soda that you open with that little metal doohickey on the side of the cooler.
It is a body-for-hire: in the post-Jackpot world you can strap a special doohickey to your forehead, close your eyes and wake up – somewhat disoriented – piloting a genetically engineered android on the other side of the world or, indeed, in another timeline altogether.
Those new De Soto Skyways have a little doohickey on their noses, and if you grab and push it, the whole hood will fly open.
Typing on a regular keyboard, as opposed to the off-brand doohickeys sold for the iPad, was a relief, and it made my reporting and writing easier.
There were various categories: air cannons, trebuchets, pedal-powered doohickeys.
But they have given $25m to Mr Obama.Finally, the Obama campaign suggests that the 72-year-old Mr McCain is too doddery to understand the doohickeys that modern bankers (and others) use.
Rubber and metal doohickeys (probably vital in some field or industry) are arranged in ways that force us to consider the old shape-volume-mass-color concepts.
And he's nearly despondent about the recent closing of Mxyplyzyk, a gift shop known for outré greeting cards and various other doohickeys, like a pair of metallic deer-antler candleholders.
