Dictionary
Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.
whydunit en · NOUN
Meanings
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A type of detective story in which the focus is not on the person who committed the crime, but on the motives for committing it.
Connery takes over the interrogation and in the process beats the man to death. This much we know almost from the beginning, so the film is less of a whodunit than a whydunit.
1985, Laurence Urdang, Walter W. Hunsinger, Nancy LaRoche, Picturesque expressions: a thematic dictionary, page 420:
Forms
Relateds
wheredunit · howdunit · whodunit