Green’s Dictionary of Slang

anything for which one has no precise name.

1575		‘Mr S’ Gammer Gurton’s Needle in Whitworth (1997) V ii: Give my Gammer again her washical thou stole away.
1600		Shakespeare As You Like It III iii: Good even, good Master What-ye-call’t; how do you do, sir?
1622		Middleton & Rowley The Changeling I i: Poppy is one simple indeed, and cuckoo what-you-call’t another.
1691		‘The New Medly of the Country Man, etc.’ in Ebsworth Merry Drollery Compleat (1875) 182: From what-you-call’t Town in what-you-call’t shire / To London Cham come.
1715		S. Centlivre Gotham Election I i: His Lady is a what d’ye call it – a High-flyer.
1728		Vanbrugh & Cibber Provoked Husband IV i: On Sunday, we are to be at the what-d’ye-call-it ... Assembly.
1758		R. Dodsley Sir John Cockle at Court 31: Well, Mr. What-d’ye-call’t, said I, suppose it shou’d.
1766		Colman & Garrick Clandestine Marriage I ii: I shall set out with as many diamonds as any body in town, except [...] Polly What-d’ye-call-it, lord Squander’s kept mistress.
1773		O. Goldsmith She Stoops to Conquer Act III: Have you got any of your — a — what d’ye call it in the house?
1798		‘Peter Pindar’ ‘Tales of Hoy’ Works (1801) V 241: Have you not a what-d’ye-call-it about ye, a bit of gaiety or so?
1818		W. Scott Heart of Mid-Lothian (1883) 376: Your tartan what-d’ye-call-it there upon your shoulders.
1821		W.T. Moncrieff Tom and Jerry I iv: This what do you call it? – this cover-me-decently, was all very well at Hawthorn Hall, I daresay; but here, among the pinks in Rotten-row, the lady-birds in the Saloon, the angelics at Almack’s [...] it would be taken for nothing less than the index of a complete flat.
1830		Lytton Paul Clifford I 113: You might still be [...] vilifying a parcel of poor devils in the what-d’ye-call it, with a hard name.
1840		R. Barham ‘The Brothers of Birchington’ in Ingoldsby Legends (1847) 266: Father Richard sat up on his what-do-you-call-- / Sur son séant.
1850		A.C. Mowatt Fashion Ii ii: And Seraphina she’s in love with Count Jolly – what-d’ye-call-it.
c.1850		Peeping Tom (London) 3 12/2: [of the vagina] She told him her watch stood. ‘I don’t wonder that [...] when it is so near your what d’ye call it’ .
1854		Pictorial Pick (NY) 4 July n.p.: Bobby. I wish I had a what-do-you-call-it. My cigare won’t go.
1859		C.J. Lever Davenport Dunn 166: Paul Kellett’s ruined – cleaned out – sold in the Encumbered what-d’ye-call-’ems.
1864		Stocks Up, Stocks Down in Darkey Drama 1 I: You know dem what-you-call-’ums dat goes up an’ down in de city?
1871		L.H. Bagg Four Years at Yale 45: Hewgag, a what-d’ye-call-it, a thingumbob.
1880		Bulletin (Sydney) 1 May 4/1: The clever folk of Evening ‘Thingumbob’ and Town and — ‘what d’ ye call it’.
1890		Sporting Times 8 Feb. 1/1: ‘Where are you off to?’ inquired Gub. ‘Going to the whatyoucalla theatre,’ was the reply.
1901		D. Cotsford Society Snapshots 135: When you’re in — what-d’ye-call-it? — you must do as the what-d’ye-call-’ems do!
1911		G. Bronson-Howard Enemy to Society 69–70: ‘First you swear in front of me,’ she said. [...] ‘The what-you-call-it slipped out,’ he said, almost blushing.
1921		D.L. Sayers Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club (1977) 63: I have been wandering round like the what-d’you-call-it bird.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 711: So I went around to the whatyoucallit everything was whatyoucallit.
1925		R. Lardner ‘Women’ in Coll. Short Stories (1941) 151: They’ve made a bum out of my life. They’ve wrecked my — what-do-you-call-it?
1934		Wodehouse Right Ho, Jeeves 59: I suppose a certain what-d’you-call-it had crept into my manner.
1941		G. Kersh They Die with Their Boots Clean 86: The war brings out the what-d’you-call-it in some blokes.
1951		J.D. Salinger Catcher in the Rye (1958) 101: ‘I had an operation very recently.’ ‘Yeah? Where?’ ‘On my wuddayacallit – my clavichord.’.
1957		Kerouac letter 8 Nov. in Charters II (1999) 80: He also has a corny remote, whattayoucallit, radio dance hookup where he sounds just like a poor danceband.
1960		Wodehouse Jeeves in the Offing 62: I quivered like a startled what-d’you-call-it.
1974		D. Mamet Sexual Perversity in Chicago (1994) 97: The broad with the dumpy legs and the fat whatdayacallit.
1990		R. Campbell Sweet La-La Land (1999) 44: Fucking whattayacallit, hungan, from the fucking jungle, used to dance around with his fucking shlong hanging out.
1996		(con. 1949) G. Pelecanos Big Blowdown (1999) 129: Those whad’ya-call-its.
2001		C. McPherson Port Authority 8: A tableful of whatdoyoucallit.