howdunit

English

Alternative forms

• howdunnit

Noun

howdunit (plural howdunits)

1. A type of detective story in which the focus is not on who committed the crime, but how they have done so.
   • 1969, Ellery Queen: In the Queens' Parlor, and Other Leaves from the Editors' Notebook, p 72 [1]:

     After half a century, the whodunit was joined by the howdunit, in which the emphasis swung from the identity of the murderer to the method by which the murder was committed.

Related terms

• whodunit
• whydunit

Anagrams

• whodunit