Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also dingis) anything for which one cannot recall the proper name.

1876		Pioche Daily Journal 23 Sept. 3/1: The latest thing in the way of a soul-warmer that the youths of Pioche have got up is a dingis made thusly [DA].
1903		‘Hugh McHugh’ Out for the Coin 56: I promised Tom faithfully that I wouldn’t buy a benzine buggy until he invents the dingus — that’s the name of it! The dingus [...] is something like a bifftoid, only its deeper.
1914		Ade ‘The Dream That Came Out’ in Ade’s Fables 155: It was a kind of Dingus formerly exhibited on the What-Not in almost every polite Home.
1920		S. Lewis Main Street (1921) 96: They think the broad couch and that Japanese dingus are absurd.
1922		Herald (New Orleans, LA) 14 Sept. 6/1: We gather in all noise that’s made [...] broadcasted through the air / We tune our dingus up at night and ketch the hymns of hate and spite, that’s let off — everywhere.
1938		J. Weidman I Can Get It For You Wholesale 273: Now you look through this little dingus here, this V.
1940		J. Archibald ‘No Place Like Homicide’ in Popular Detective Apr. 🌐 Willie got up to light the gas. His fingers were on the little dingus that turns the illuminating vapor on.
1953		R. Chandler Long Good-Bye 24: I [...] got the coffee-maker down off the shelf. [...] I filled the lower half of the dingus and set it on the flame.
1960		D. Hamilton Death of a Citizen 101: Pull that little metal dingus sticking out from the bottom.
1972		(con. 1916) G. Swarthout Tin Lizzie Troop (1978) 160: I’ve had a crawful of rudders and levers and pedals and dinguses of every damned kind!
1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 117: Other catchalls of this sort are dingus, doodad, doohickey, gadget, gizmo, thingamabob and watchamacallit.

2. a euph. for the penis.

1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
1938–48		in G. Legman Limerick (1953) 176: The head of his dingus went in!
1958		(con. 1950) E. Frankel Band of Brothers 6: You drop me, I’ll feed your dingus to the gooney birds!
1967		(con. 1920s) J. Thompson South of Heaven (1994) 106: Fella [...] probably wouldn’t know which end of his dingus to pee with.
1978		L. Kramer Faggots 320: Think banana and bird and ding-dong, dingus.
1985–6		J. Stahl ‘Finnegan’s Waikiki’ in Love Without (2007) 140: As if the dingus isn’t bad enough, I need a rest every minute [...] from the emphysema.
1986		L. Nkosi Mating Birds 167: Bloody rapist kaffir bastard! Why not cut off his filthy black dingus, the rotten swine!
1998		‘Bill E. Goodhead’ Nubile Treat 🌐 To think of it! The little dingus she had sometimes seen when he was a little boy had grown big and thick and hairy, and she was giving it its first sucking off.
2007		C. Goffard Snitch Jacket 35: A man forced to imbibe the water of his own dingus is a desperate bastard.

3. (US drugs) an improvised hypodermic syringe, made from an eye-dropper and a pin.

1937		B. Dai Opium Addiction in Chicago 198: Dingus. An eye-dropper.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1959		J.E. Schmidt Narcotics Lingo and Lore.

4. a dildo.

1959		W. Burroughs Naked Lunch (1968) 112: Can’t shit with that dingus up me.
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular.

5. (US) a fool, a show-off.

2014

C. Eble (ed.) UNC-CH Campus Sl. Spring 2014 4: DINGUS — foolish, stupid, or reckless person: ‘Stop clowning around, you dingus!’.