Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also dudad) in pl., unspecified possessions.

1877		E.L. Wheeler Deadwood Dick in Beadle’s Half Dime Library I:1 83/1: ‘Gentlemen!’ he [the coachman] plead, ‘there is need o’ yer dutchin’ out yer dudads right liberal ef yer’ve enny purtic’lar anticipation an’ desire ter git ter Deadwood ter-night.
1919		Colville Examiner (VA) 1 Nov. 2/4: I have bought a grand piano [...] and a lot of other doodads on the monthly payment plan.
1944		J. Archibald ‘Skip Tracer Bullets’ in Popular Detective June 🌐 Huff had risked his life once before to save the company’s doodads.
1992		M. Frayn Now You Know 247: So him and Shireen dive after Jacqui’s doodads.

2. (also dodad, dodaddle, doodab(bus), doogood, dudedad) any nameless small object, typically some form of gadget.

1896		Dalles Dly Chron. (OR) 14 Aug. 4/2: How much do you charge for the doodad you stuff the wind into the rubber with?
1905		L. Pound ‘Dialect Speech in Nebraska’ in DN III:i 66: Indefinite expression applied to something, the name of which is not readily recalled [...] doo-dad, dodaddle.
1907		Eve. Star (Wash., DC) 18 Aug. 33/1: he figures out a patent doodad to a blast furnace.
1908		K. McGaffey Sorrows of a Show Girl Ch. xvi: This machine has got a dudedad on it that prevents it from going more than ten.
1911		L. Pound ‘A Second Word-List From Nebraska’ in DN III:vii 543: doogood, n. Vague designation used when exact word is not recalled, or is purposely avoided. Also forms like doodabbus, doodinkus, etc.
1912		Bemidji Dly Pioneer (MN) 17 Jan. 2/2: It’s only in books that the poor man invents a doodad that brings in the brass.
1926		A. Angel ‘Golf Gab’ in AS I:12 628: In America, jigger is often used as an indefinite name, not too dignified, of the same order as thingumbob, doodad, or dingus.
1939		W. Winchell On Broadway 27 Oct. [synd. col.] The new high in muscular doodads. The hairdressing salon on the premises of the N.Y.A.C.
1948		(con. 1944) N. Mailer Naked and Dead 375: Ah’m gonna learn all the little doodads in that brake.
1960, 1975		Wentworth & Flexner DAS 153/1: do-dad, doodad A useless ornament. A thing.
1967		F. Harvey Air War – Vietnam 14: I’d not worry about those little medical doodads.
1975		J. Roe The Same Old Grind 111: ‘The doodad he’s got around his gizmo falls off and there he is in his jock’.
1978		P. Theroux Picture Palace 155: It was something between a whopping doodad for colonic irrigation and a kind of magician’s outfit.
1983		S. King Christine 289: This was a little doodad Will Darnell had given Arnie.
1986		R.G. Barrett Real Thing 117: A large modern fridge, covered with magnetic do-dads and magazine cartoons.
1987		W.T. Vollmann You Bright and Risen Angels (1988) 61: Everybody’ll be buyin’ electric do-dads and dildoes and humdingers.
1992		R.G. Barrett White Shoes 5: [of snacks] She’d call round after work with all these little do-dads from the restaurant.
1995		C. Hiaasen Stormy Weather 218: Every stupid little doodad inside the place.
2000		B. Wiprud Sleep with the Fishes 52: Walleye will strike jigs, doodads that amount to a hook with an oblong of painted lead [etc.].

3. (also dewdad, dodad, doodab, doodah) usu. in pl., something small, used as a ornament or decoration; cit. 1922 refers to food seen as insufficiently plain.

1911		E. Ferber Dawn O’Hara (1925) 70: You can’t expect charming tones, and Oriental do-dads and apple trees in a German boarding-house.
1914		Ade ‘The New Fable of Susan and the Daughter’ in Ade’s Fables 218: They dwelt in a two-story Frame with countless Dewdads and Thingumbobs tacked along the Eave.
1914		G.A. England ‘Rural Locutions of Maine and Northern New Hampshire’ in DN IV:ii 71: doodab, or doodad, n. Any small, fancy, fussy thing. ‘Her bunnet was all hung raound [sic] with little doodabs’.
1920		S. Lewis Main Street (1921) 298: It would be sensible [...] to pay more attention to getting a crackerjack furnace than to all this architecture and doodads?
1922		S. Lewis Babbitt (1974) 14: You ought to have more prunes, and not all these fancy doodads.
1927		(con. 1923) ‘J.H. Ross’ Mint (1955) 168: The old lady next to me in the Underground wore a flippant skirt, all doo-dahs.
1937		E. Anderson Thieves Like Us (1999) 109: And plenty of them silk doodads.
1946		J. Evans Halo in Blood (1988) 71: It was a bedroom with mirrors and crystal doodads.
1955		‘Blackie’ Audett Rap Sheet 52: I looked the papers over and all there was on them was those up and down dodads the Chinese make with their brushes. I couldn’t even tell which end was up.
1957		R. Prather Always Leave ’Em Dying 117: They’ll still have to deck him out with grease paint and doodads to make him reasonable.
1964		A. Hine Unsinkable Molly Brown 26: Pretty doodads and a pretty little pet to wear ’em.
1972		(con. 1916) G. Swarthout Tin Lizzie Troop (1978) 215: A gushy clerk got to selling me doodads and I went the whole hog.
2011		J. Harrington ‘Redlining’ in Pulp Ink [ebook] ‘Ain’t no one here’ [...] ‘You didn’t know that when you put that doodad [i.e. a stolen necklace] on display’.

4. in pl., nonsense, foolish chatter.

1922		S. Lewis Babbitt (1974) 173: The prizes were a lot of folderols and doodads like poetry books.
1958		R. Chandler Playback 122: Cut the doodads.

5. in pl., the female breasts.

1942

R.L. Bellem ‘Daughter of Murder’ Dan Turner – Hollywood Detective Dec. 🌐 I could tab the upper halves of her full, rounded doo-dads nestling in the lacy cups of an uplift bandeau.

6. (US) an item of women’s clothing.

1955

D. Hitchens Sleep with Strangers (1983) [ebook] ‘How was she dressed?’ Ott looked disgusted. [...] ‘I don’t remember. I’ve got no memory for women’s doodads’.