dingus
/ˈdɪŋɡəs/
dingus noun: a gadget, device, or object whose name is either unknown, forgotten, or omitted for the purpose of humor.
Noun
dingus (plural dinguses)
- A gadget, device, or object whose name is either unknown, forgotten, or omitted for the purpose of humor.
- "If anybody should come in, and catch you with your breeches, as it were, down on the floor, all you have to do is to drink the water, wrap the rubber dingus around you, and tell them to “lay on Macduff.”1879, George Wilbur Peck, Peck's Fun, Being Extracts from the "La Crosse Sun," and "Peck's Sun," Milwaukee
- WLK. First radio station. On December 31, 1921, local engineer Francis F. Hamilton's radio station, 9ZJ, signed on with an address from Mayor Samuel (Lew) Shank. Broadcasting from Hamilton's garage at 2011 North Alabama Street, Shank made the city's first radio blooper: "Hamilton, do you mean to...1921 December 31, “WLK”, in David J. Bodenhamer, Robert G[raham] Barrows, David Gordon Vanderstel, editors, The Encyclopedia of Indianapolis, Bloominton; Indianapolis, Ind.: Indiana University Press...
- A foolish, incompetent, or silly person.
- I just lost my keys again. Now I feel like a dingus.
- Synonyms:
- doofus
- The penis.
- "He got mad at me because his dingus wouldn’t come up for him — too drunk, I guess. […]1970, Don Tracy, The Last Boat Out of Cincinnati, Trident Press, published 1970, →ISBN, page 74
- And Chester Charles Smithers sucked on that warm black dingus for as long as he could.2015, Quentin Tarantino, The Hateful Eight, spoken by Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson)
- Synonyms:
- dink, anaconda, baloney pony, bald-headed hermit, banana, bird, birdie, bobby, boonga, cack
Proper noun capitalized: Dingus
Dingus (plural Dinguses)
- A surname.
Examples of dingus in a sentence
- Broadcasting from Hamilton's garage at 2011 North Alabama Street, Shank made the city's first radio blooper: "Hamilton, do you mean to tell me that people can actually hear me over that damn' dingus?"1921 December 31, “WLK”, in David J. Bodenhamer, Robert G[raham] Barrows, David Gordon Vanderstel, editors, The Encyclopedia of...
- "He took the this-is-unheard-of-but-not-really-serious-of-course attitude of a street fakir whose mechanical dingus flops during a demonstration."1929, Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest:
- I filled the lower half of the dingus and set it on the flame.1953, Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye, Penguin, published 2010, page 29:
- ‘Say, what’s that dingus you Britishers wear when you’re playing cricket?1979, Kyril Bonfiglioli, After You with the Pistol, Penguin, published 2001, page 241:
Synonyms of dingus
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of dingus
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | dinguses |
| alternative form | dinges |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Dinguses |
Origin of dingus
Probably of multiple origins. Partially a borrowing from Dutch dinges (“thingamajig, thingy; whatshisname, whatshername”), ding (“thing”). Probably also partially a borrowing from Afrikaans in view of its South African occurrence. The spelling dingus is a pseudo-Latinism to look like a Latin word ending in -us.
Probably an Americanized spelling of German Dinges.
Words that rhyme with dingus
Questions about dingus
- What does dingus mean?
- Dingus means a gadget, device, or object whose name is either unknown, forgotten, or omitted for the purpose of humor.
- How do you use dingus in a sentence?
- Broadcasting from Hamilton's garage at 2011 North Alabama Street, Shank made the city's first radio blooper: "Hamilton, do you mean to tell me that people can actually hear me over that damn' dingus?"
- What part of speech is dingus?
- Dingus can be a noun or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce dingus?
- Dingus is pronounced /ˈdɪŋɡəs/.
- What is the plural of dingus?
- The plural of dingus is dinguses.
Words near dingus in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: dingus (page history and authors); Dingus (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-dingus.ogg.
Cite this entry: “dingus.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dingus. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.