whodunnit

British

/ huːˈdʌnɪt /

noun

informal a novel, play, etc, concerned with a crime, usually murder

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

MGM's "The Sheep Detectives," a farmyard whodunnit, took in $12.5 million over the weekend for a total of $47 million -- marking a fifth-place finish.

From Barron's • May 24, 2026

I have stopped watching mysteries on TV because I can tell whodunnit within the first 10 minutes.

From MarketWatch • Mar. 13, 2026

Set on a country estate, it toggles between the Regency Era and the present and weaves together physics, history and a whodunnit involving the poet Lord Byron.

From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 29, 2025

In a two-star review, the Telegraph's Robbie Collin called it a "nefariously lazy" adaptation that is little more than a "half-hearted parody of a whodunnit".

From BBC • Aug. 24, 2025

Many dead ends and a visit to the crime scene later, the women finally figured out whodunnit.

From Los Angeles Times • Jul. 28, 2025

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023