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
Anthony D'alessandro, Deadline, 31 Oct. 2025
Its quality isn't the horror itself but the ghoulish environment and subtle danger that lies beneath, being a whodunit occult film that never lets up, keeping us guessing on the true nature of the terrors up until the bitter end.
—Michael Lee Simpson, Entertainment Weekly, 29 Oct. 2025
While Gomez has played Mabel Mora on Hulu's whodunit since its premiere in 2021, Park played up-and-coming actress Kimber Min as a recurring character for just one season in 2023.
—Ashlyn Robinette, PEOPLE, 27 Oct. 2025
The character work elevates this far above your usual slasher or whodunit, and has a lot to say about the threat of solitude always darkening the edges of old age.
—Neil McRobert, Vulture, 16 Oct. 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Whodunit.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/whodunit. Accessed 4 Nov. 2025.
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whodunit
noun
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