Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. used when the correct description or name eludes the speaker; also of an un-named action.

1592		G. Harvey Four Letters n.p.: [...] Elderton [...] will counterfeit a hundred dogged fables, libels, calumnies, slanders, lies for the whetstone, what not [F&H].
1602		J. Cooke How A Man May Choose A Good Wife From A Bad Act IV: Why, you Iacke sawce, you Cuckold you what-not.
1621		R. Burton Anatomy of Melancholy (1850) 150: Such air is unwholesome, and engenders melancholy, plagues, and what not?
1678		Bunyan Pilgrim’s Progress i n.p.: Lions, dragons, darkness, and in a word, death and what not [F&H].
1778		Thrale Thraliana i Apr.-May 334: [He] had strong Connections in the East Indies, was Director of the Company, Chairman of the Committee & what not!
1801		C. Dibdin Yngr Song Smith 40: The loaves and fishes, the corks and what not!
1824		Dict. of Love 171: The critics of the fair sex tell us they are vain, frivolous, ignorant, coquettish, capricious, and what not.
1834		‘Touch Her On The Raw’ in Luscious Songster 18: Out at morn you hikes, / To sell your greens and carrots, your taters and vot not.
1840		T. Haliburton Clockmaker III 82: Every man, woman and child [...] pulls out an English handkerchief, to wipe their eyes and blow their noses with, and buy as much English black cloth, crape, and what not, as would freight a vessel.
1866		Night Side of N.Y. 44: The queer, unclassified sailors belonging to ships in the port – be they Lascars, or what not – are ever expert with their ‘bleeders.’.
1871		Galaxy (N.Y.) Apr. 564: He then invites his friend into some adjacent restaurant or saloon, and while acting as his host does him the favor of showing him a ‘first-class’ investment by producing bonds of the Grand Consolidated What Not, which he declares to be worth par.
1887		W.E. Henley ‘Villon’s Straight Tip’ in Farmer Musa Pedestris (1896) 177: It’s up-the-spout and Charley-Wag / With wipes and tickers and what not!
1896		H. Blossom Checkers 5: Laborers, gamblers, negros, and what-not.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 1 Dec. 8/3: His head is of an oblong character, and his village pub. keeps up an average trade of 16 barrels a week, apart from a steady output of mysterious ‘what not’ which lurks in the green bottle at the back of the bar.
1912		E. Pugh City Of The World 275: Just as them boards o’ works or committees or what-not do.
1926		‘Sapper’ Final Count 839: They think I’m a positive poop — a congenital what-not.
1937		Jennings & Madge May the Twelfth: Mass-Observation Day-Surveys 3:8: A rather drunk young man [...] asked ‘Is this the official whatnot?’.
1941		G. Kersh They Die with Their Boots Clean 71: Are there any market gardeners, or other men who know all about turfing and whatnot?
1950		‘Neville Shute’ Town Like Alice 82: It’s a bit more primitive than that. The whatnot’s out in the backyard.
1962		M.K. Joseph Pound of Saffron 49: ‘Out, you little screaming what-nots,’ he shouted.
1968		A. Burgess Enderby Outside in Complete Enderby (2002) 304: Ali Baba and Sinbad the whatnot.
1977		L. Heinemann Close Quarters (1987) 156: The kid watched those sheep every damn night, pulling his pud and whatnot.
1978		P. Theroux Picture Palace 25: She pressed me quite hard on everything else – the drinking water [...] the wild animals and what-not.
1983		J. Byrell (con. 1959) Up the Cross 29: ‘That must’ve been a long tom tit. Bet you had to use a full roll of whatnot wiper’.
1988		Beano Special No. 4 n.p.: Britain will be full of warring Picts and what-nots!
1999		L. Gould Shagadelically Speaking 18: [A] little boy maniacally holding a plate of burgers and whatnot.
2005		H. Mantel Beyond Black 103: He says he’ll push a bottle up your bleeding whatnot.
2012		C. Stella Rough Riders 47: Fed them booze and whatnot to keep them in a stupor.
2020		(con. 1991-94) W. Boyle City of Margins 11: They mostly do strong-arm stuff for him, collections and whatnot.
2020		D. Whish-Wilson Shore Leave 47: ‘Knockin down the house and whatnot’.

2. the penis.

c.1939		B. Bennett ‘A Tale of the Rockies’ in Billy Bennett’s Third Budget 25: And on his what-not a screen wiper he’d got / To stop the flies tickling his fetlock.
1960		A. Burgess Doctor Is Sick (1972) 11: This tube here is attached to my old whatnot.