whatchamacallit
/ˈwɒtʃəməˌkɔːlɪt/
"whatchamacallit" is a 15-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“whatchamacallit” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 15
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A metasyntactic term used for any object whose actual name the speaker does not know or cannot remember; a doodad, gizmo, thingamajig, thingy.
Corpus desk
Index EN-whatchamacallit · whatchamacallit · English
whatchamacallit · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 15 letters
- VOW-5 5 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "W" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | whatchamacallit |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈwɒtʃəməˌkɔːlɪt/ |
| Letters | 15 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “whatchamacallit” in English
Rare enough to double-check
whatchamacallit is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈwɒtʃəməˌkɔːlɪt/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A metasyntactic term used for any object whose actual name the speaker does not know or cannot remember; a doodad, gizmo, thingamajig, thingy.".
whatchamacallit has no tracked misspelling variants, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: Univerbation and contraction of what you may call it. United States, 20th century (recorded in 1921). The correct English form is whatchamacallit, spelled W-H-A-T-C-H-A-M-A-C-A-L-L-I-T.
Definition
- 1A metasyntactic term used for any object whose actual name the speaker does not know or cannot remember; a doodad, gizmo, thingamajig, thingy.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how whatchamacallit appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
The Thingamajig and the Wachamacallit.
You’re—you must be the whatchamacallit, huh? The peer.
Etymology
Univerbation and contraction of what you may call it. United States, 20th century (recorded in 1921).
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.