Word.ws English Dictionary

whodunwhat

whodunwhat noun: a whodunit in which the nature of the crime is a mystery, as well as the identity of the perpetrator.

Noun

whodunwhat (plural whodunwhats)

  1. A whodunit in which the nature of the crime is a mystery, as well as the identity of the perpetrator.
    • In Sleuth Anthony Shaffer created the whodunwhat, where not only the identity of the criminal but the nature of the crime — indeed, the reality and reliability of everything we've seen with our own eyes — is part of the mystery.1993, Contemporary Dramatists, page 592
    • Our narrator reads, rereads, and slowly realizes that ulterior "plots" are afoot; a whodunit develops into several whodunwhats; a murder may or may not have happened, or is yet to happen.1997, Rain Taxi, volumes 2-4, page 27

Forms of whodunwhat

pluralwhodunwhats

Origin of whodunwhat

From who done what, modelled on whodunit.

Questions about whodunwhat

What does whodunwhat mean?
Whodunwhat means a whodunit in which the nature of the crime is a mystery, as well as the identity of the perpetrator.
What part of speech is whodunwhat?
Whodunwhat is a noun.
What is the plural of whodunwhat?
The plural of whodunwhat is whodunwhats.

Words near whodunwhat in the dictionary

  1. whodunitry
  2. whodunits
  3. whodunnit
  4. whodunnitry
  5. whodunnits
  6. whodunwhat
  7. whodunwhats
  8. whoe'er
  9. whoes
  10. whoever
  11. whoever pays the piper calls the tune

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: whodunwhat (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “whodunwhat.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/whodunwhat. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.