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English
Noun
why-not
- (obsolete) A violent and peremptory procedure without any assigned reason; a sudden conclusive happening.
1662, [Samuel Butler], “”, in Hudibras. The First and Second Parts. , London: John Martyn and Henry Herringman, , published 1678; republished in A[lfred] R[ayney] Waller, editor, Hudibras: Written in the Time of the Late Wars, Cambridge: University Press, 1905, →OCLC:When the church / Was taken with a why-not in the lurch.
1653, John Harington, A Briefe View of the State of the Church:This game […] was like to have been lost with a why-not.