Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Alternative spelling of whydunit.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • As this excellent book is very much a whydunnit and not a whodunnit, it's not giving anything away to say that the murderer is 15-year-old Thomas, son of rogue banker Lars Anderson, who has killed himself after luring thousands of investors into penury.

    Crime roundup – reviews 2011

  • Except that destination is a blind – because The Night Sessions is actually more of a whydunnit than a whodunnit, and the real why remains hidden for much of the narrative.

    Gods and Robots – The Night Sessions by Ken MacLeod « It Doesn't Have To Be Right… 2009

  • Highsmith, author of Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr Ripley, was a pioneer of telling a murder story from the killer's point of view, and dragged the crime genre from the logic puzzle whodunnit to the psychological whydunnit.

    Plenty of Nothing: 2007

  • Highsmith, author of Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr Ripley, was a pioneer of telling a murder story from the killer's point of view, and dragged the crime genre from the logic puzzle whodunnit to the psychological whydunnit.

    Patricia Highsmith and her Snails 2007

  • The mystery, in other words, isn't terribly mystifying--the book is more of a how- and whydunnit than a whodunnit, and both the how and the why hinge on a thin Da Vinci Code satire that is too subtle to be truly funny and too prominent to save the book from sinking into irrelevance the moment the egg-timer on this pop-culture phenomenon runs out a problem that has plagued too many recent Discworld novels.

    Not With a Bang But With a Thud! or, Whither Discworld Abigail Nussbaum 2006

  • The mystery, in other words, isn't terribly mystifying--the book is more of a how- and whydunnit than a whodunnit, and both the how and the why hinge on a thin Da Vinci Code satire that is too subtle to be truly funny and too prominent to save the book from sinking into irrelevance the moment the egg-timer on this pop-culture phenomenon runs out a problem that has plagued too many recent Discworld novels.

    Archive 2006-01-01 Abigail Nussbaum 2006

  • "Equus" is essentially a "whydunnit," with Dysart methodically unraveling the facts in the case.

    NY1 - Top Stories 2008

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