The story
Unknown; attested since the 1880s. Compare earlier daud (“a piece of something”), later doohickey (“a thing (whose name one cannot recall)”), dialectal dad, dadge (“a large piece, chunk”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
doodad
Today it means: Used to refer to something whose name one cannot recall: an unspecified device, gadget, part, or thing. Full definition →