whodunit
noun
Did you know?
In 1930, Donald Gordon, a book reviewer for News of Books, needed to come up with something to say about a rather unremarkable mystery novel called Half-Mast Murder. "A satisfactory whodunit," he wrote. The relatively new term (introduced only a year earlier) played fast and loose with spelling and grammar, but whodunit caught on anyway. Other writers tried respelling it who-done-it, and one even insisted on using whodidit, but those sanitized versions lacked the punch of the original and fell by the wayside. Whodunit became so popular that by 1939 at least one language pundit had declared it "already heavily overworked" and predicted it would "soon be dumped into the taboo bin." History has proven that prophecy false, and whodunit is still going strong.
Examples of whodunit in a Sentence
Angela Watercutter Wired Staff, WIRED, 25 June 2024
Outside of the crime drama, Renner is next set to star in Rian Johnson’s whodunit Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, the latest in a series of movies about detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig).
—Shania Russell, EW.com, 25 June 2024
Those are among the enduring mysteries in this international whodunit.
—Jacqueline Charles, Miami Herald, 20 June 2024
Origin begins with the lead-up to the killing of Trayvon Martin (Myles Frost) by George Zimmerman in 2012, almost like a murder that might kick off a conventional whodunit.
—Bilge Ebiri, Vulture, 10 June 2024
See all Example Sentences for whodunit 
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'whodunit.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Articles Related to whodunit
Dictionary Entries Near whodunit
Cite this Entry
“Whodunit.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/whodunit. Accessed 4 Jul. 2024.
Copy CitationKids Definition
whodunit
noun
Share