whodunit
noun
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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
Karen MacPherson, Washington Post, 23 Mar. 2024
Knut Johnson, an attorney representing Sylvester, started his opening statement by assuring the jury that the charge his client faces — the 2011 murder of a skinhead gang member named Ronald Richardson — would not be a whodunit.
—Nate Gartrell, The Mercury News, 26 Feb. 2024
Watch Spaceman on Netflix Murder Mystery The whodunit genre took a wild and hilarious turn with 2019’s Murder Mystery.
—Keith Langston, Peoplemag, 1 Mar. 2024
Trailing close behind, A Haunting in Venice took in $14.5 million domestically, though The Nun II had a more decisive victory compared to the horror-tinged whodunit's $22.7 million international debut.
—Lester Fabian Brathwaite, EW.com, 17 Sep. 2023
As police detective Sean (Kevin Bacon) investigates, and Dave (Tim Robbins) emerges as the prime suspect, the neo-noir thriller cuts across the conventional whodunit and explores the depths of decades-long festered trauma resurfacing in the present.
—EW.com, 18 Jan. 2024
Yet, despite the uneven pacing and other missteps, the whodunit of it all should keep audiences interested.
—Aramide Tinubu, Variety, 16 Jan. 2024
His approach expectedly deviates from a straightforward whodunit.
—Carlos Aguilar, Variety, 2 Feb. 2024
Cosmetics' compelling true crime parody documentary dedicated to figuring out the whodunit of the ultimate heist: nabbing beloved beauty products.
—Staff Author, Peoplemag, 11 Jan. 2024
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.
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Cite this Entry
“Whodunit.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/whodunit. Accessed 19 Apr. 2024.
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whodunit
noun
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