Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also thingmy) an unnamed individual.

1933		M. Marshall Tramp-Royal on the Toby 200: ‘John Thingmy!’ announced the magistrate.
1962		K. Waterhouse There is a Happy Land (1964) 66: Hey, thingy! Is them your cubs that’s coming?
1982		J. Sullivan ‘No Greater Love’ Only Fools and Horses [TV script] You’d better tell me your name, it’s gonna get a bit embarrassing if I keep having to call you thingy all night.
1999		Observer Mag. 3 Oct. 7: The boy who you reduced to tears / Lad called ‘thingy’ for six whole years.
2007		R. Milward Apples (2023) 75: ‘Is that Adam thingy?’.
2012		R. Milward Kimberly’s Capital Punishment (2023) 398: ‘Thingy’s dead [...] Whatsherface’.
2018		G. Gilmore Base Nature [ebook] ‘[M]y cousin Karen’s neighbour [...] Wendy thingy’.

2. (also thingio) an unnamed object; occas. action.

1966		T. Keyes All Night Stand 112: All these kids were in the sound-proof booth thingie.
1972		Frank Zappa ‘Magdalena’ 🎵 With your little nipples protruding through your little see-thru thingie.
1978		R.D. Pharr Giveadamn Brown (1997) 163: ‘[of a machine] Harry had a secret for making ‘H’ four or five times stronger than when he put it in his thingy’.
1981		W. Russell Educating Rita I v: frank: What is it you want to see? rita: ‘The Importance of Bein’ Thingy.’.
1999		J. Ridley Love Is a Racket 291: Dress number one was the cocktail thingy.
1999		P. Temple Black Tide (2012) [ebook] Potholes like bomb thingies under the stuff.
2000		Indep. Rev. 24 Jan. 1: The little silver strainer thingie.
2003		N. Griffiths Stump 93: It’s the fuckin, it’s that fuckin foot n mouth thingio.
2004		T. Winton ‘Defender’ in Turning (2005) 314: There’s boxes of those clay pigeon thingies in the shed.
2011		J.J. Connolly Viva La Madness 58: Royski, give him the thingy [i.e. a key].
2013		K. Sampson Killing Pool 5: She’s [...] giving it all the ‘treat me as a copper, not as a woman’ thingio.
2015		S. King Finders Keepers (2016) 68: ‘Where, hon?’ Linda asked. ‘The Emergency Fund thingy’.
2022		Twitter 6 July 🌐 Why a hand on his shoulder? Couldn't they give him a thingy in the goolies?!

3. the penis.

1966		T. Keyes All Night Stand 93: Blond English Eton sort of people with tiny thingies and long legs.
2002		A. Duff Jake’s Long Shadow 57: She reached out for him, down there, giggled and said what a miracle of growth they are, thingies.

4. in pl., a woman’s breasts.

1977

(con. 1950s) Nicholson & Smith Spend, Spend, Spend (1978) 44: He called me a whore to even let a man suggest wanting to play with my ‘thingies.’.

5. the vagina.

2001		J. Stahl Plainclothes Naked (2002) 19: I could cry rape [...] You’ve got your paw pretty close to my thingy.
2002		A. Duff Jake’s Long Shadow 77: Rita would call me Jake the Puss, for pussy. Not a woman’s thingie, but puss for soft and cuddly.