Meaning & use
whodunit
Last updated
UK/ˌhuːˈdʌnɪt/
US/ˌhuːˈdʌnɪt/
Meaning
nouncountable
A mystery story, film or play in which the main interest is working out who committed the crime.
Grammar: Also spelled who-dunnit or whodunnit in British English.
Patterns
- a whodunit set in somewhere
- a classic whodunit
I read a gripping whodunit on the train.
The film is a clever whodunit with six suspects.
She loves a good whodunit on a rainy Sunday.
Word forms
| plural | whodunits |
|---|
Common combinations
- classic whodunit
- The novel is a classic whodunit in a country house.
- cozy whodunit
- She writes cozy whodunits about a village baker.
- gripping whodunit
- It was a gripping whodunit with a twist at the end.
- solve a whodunit
- Readers try to solve the whodunit before the detective does.
- murder whodunit
- They staged a murder whodunit at the dinner party.
Synonyms and how they differ
- mystery
- Mystery is wider, covering any puzzling story, while whodunit focuses on discovering the culprit.
- detective story
- A detective story centers on the investigator, whereas whodunit describes the puzzle itself.
- crime novel
- Crime novel may follow the criminal or a thriller plot, and need not hide the culprit.
Word family
Commonly confused: whodunit or howdunit?
whodunit vs howdunit
A howdunit is a mystery about how a crime was committed, not who did it.
Practice
In a classic whodunit, what does the reader mainly want to find out?
Choose one answer.
The name comes from the question who did it. The other facts are usually secondary.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “whodunit”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.
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