"why-not" meaning in English

{
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "?"
      },
      "expansion": "why-not",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1662 (indicated as 1663), [Samuel Butler], “[The First Part of Hudibras]”, 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, Cambridgeshire: University Press, 1905, →OCLC:",
          "text": "When the church / Was taken with a why-not in the lurch.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1653, John Harington, A Briefe View of the State of the Church:",
          "text": "This game […] was like to have been lost with a why-not.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A violent and peremptory procedure without any assigned reason; a sudden conclusive happening."
      ],
      "id": "en-why-not-en-noun-pqzMYF6V",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(obsolete) A violent and peremptory procedure without any assigned reason; a sudden conclusive happening."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "obsolete"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "why-not"
}

{
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "?"
      },
      "expansion": "why-not",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English nouns with unknown or uncertain plurals",
        "English terms with obsolete senses",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1662 (indicated as 1663), [Samuel Butler], “[The First Part of Hudibras]”, 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, Cambridgeshire: University Press, 1905, →OCLC:",
          "text": "When the church / Was taken with a why-not in the lurch.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1653, John Harington, A Briefe View of the State of the Church:",
          "text": "This game […] was like to have been lost with a why-not.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A violent and peremptory procedure without any assigned reason; a sudden conclusive happening."
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(obsolete) A violent and peremptory procedure without any assigned reason; a sudden conclusive happening."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "obsolete"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "why-not"
}