whodunit

noun

who·​dun·​it hü-ˈdə-nət 

variants or less commonly whodunnit

: a detective story or mystery story

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

Recent Examples on the Web

There was also a look at surrealist whodunit This Is Not A Murder Mystery, directed by Hans Herbots (The Serpent). —Stewart Clarke, Deadline, 5 June 2025

From cultish family dynamics to whodunits set in lavish locales, here are 12 shows fans of Sirens should add to their watch list. —Emily Blackwood, People.com, 3 June 2025

Buy Now: Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil on Bookshop | Amazon | Barnes & Noble Great Black Hope, Rob Franklin (June 10) Poet Rob Franklin’s debut, Great Black Hope, is a coming-of-age whodunit about race, class, and addiction. —Shannon Carlin, Time, 22 May 2025

But Coe isn’t content to unfold a straightforward whodunit. —Leo Robson, New York Times, 14 Apr. 2025

Word History

Etymology

alteration of who done it?

First Known Use

1929, in the meaning defined above

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Kids Definition

whodunit

noun

who·​dun·​it hü-ˈdən-ət 

: a detective or mystery story presented as a novel, play, or motion picture