spatchcock

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English

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WOTD – 5 April 2023

Etymology

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A roasted spatchcock chicken.

The noun is probably derived from one of the following:

A derivation from (di)spatch (“to dispose of speedily; to make a speedy end of”) + cock[12][13] is now thought to be unlikely.[6][11][14]

The verb is derived from the noun.[15]

Pronunciation

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Noun

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spatchcock (plural spatchcocks)

  1. (cooking, also attributively) Poultry which has been cut along the spine and spread out for more even cooking. [from late 18th c.]
    • [1785, [Francis Grose], “Spatch cock”, in A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, London: […] S[amuel] Hooper, […], →OCLC:
      Spatch cock, abbreviation of a diſpatch cock, an Iriſh diſh upon any ſudden occaſion. It is a hen juſt killed from the rooſt, or yard, and immediately ſkinned, ſplit, and broiled.
      This is the earliest occurrence of the word recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary.]
    • 1851, Richard F[rancis] Burton, “The Voyage”, in Goa, and the Blue Mountains; or, Six Months of Sick Leave, London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 9:
      He then slew it [a chicken], dipped the corpse in boiling water to loosen the feathers, which he stripped off in masses, cut through its breast longitudinally, and with the aid of an iron plate, placed over a charcoal fire, proceeded to make a spatchcock, or as it is more popularly termed, a "sudden death."

Translations

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Verb

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spatchcock (third-person singular simple present spatchcocks, present participle spatchcocking, simple past and past participle spatchcocked) (transitive)

  1. (cooking) To cut (poultry) along the spine and spread the halves apart for more even cooking.
    Synonym: frog
    For the party, he spatchcocked and grilled some chickens.
  2. (figuratively) Often followed by in or into: to interpolate or insert (something into another thing); to sandwich (something within another thing).
    • 1901 October 11, Redvers Buller, quotee, “Sir R. Buller and his critics”, in The Times, number 36,583, London: George Edward Wright, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 10, column 2:
      I, therefore, spatchcocked into the middle of that telegram a sentence in which I suggested it would be necessary to surrender the garrison, what he should do when he surrendered, and how he should do it.
    • 1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 9: Scylla and Charybdis]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC, part II [Odyssey], page 203:
      Why is the underplot of King Lear in which Edmund figures lifted out of [Philip] Sidney's Arcadia and spatchcocked on to a Celtic legend older than history?
    • 2010 July 28, Peter Hain, “Tories sandbagged Clegg on electoral reform”, in The Guardian‎[2], →ISSN:
      Instead of introducing a separate bill on the alternative vote referendum, which would have been supported by Labour in a vote through parliament, the government has spatchcocked it together with the most blatant gerrymander of parliamentary constituency boundaries since the days of the rotten boroughs.
    • 2010 August 18, Alexandra Topping, quoting Jack Straw, “Lib Dems should be able to veto coalition policies, says Simon Hughes”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian‎[3], London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2020-09-21:
      We would have had to spatchcock together whatever coalition we could, but it was profoundly difficult, […]

Hypernyms

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Derived terms

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Translations

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References

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  1. ^ “spatchcock, n. and v.”, in Collins English Dictionary.
  2. ^ “spatchcock, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
  3. ^ “spatchcock, n. and v.”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
  4. ^ “spiche-coke, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  5. ^ “cọ̄ken, v.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Harold H[erman] Bender, Stephen J[oseph] Herben, Jr. (1927) “English Spick, Speck, Spitchcock, and Spike”, in C. W. E. Miller, editor, American Journal of Philology, volume 48, number 3, Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, →DOI, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 259.
  7. ^ “spik, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  8. ^ “spīk(e, n.(1)”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  9. ^ “spit(e, n.(1)”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  10. ^ “cok, n.(1)”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 William Sayers (2012) “Challenges for English Etymology in the Twenty-first Century, with Illustrations”, in Studia Neophilologica: A Journal of Germanic and Romance Languages and Literature, volume 84, number 1, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Taylor & Francis, →DOI, →ISSN, →OCLC, pages 4–5.
  12. ^ [Francis Grose] (1785) “Spatch cock”, in A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, London: […] S. Hooper, […], →OCLC: “[A]bbreviation of a diſpatch cock, an Iriſh diſh upon any ſudden occaſion. It is a hen juſt killed from the rooſt, or yard, and immediately ſkinned, ſplit, and broiled.”
  13. ^ “spatchcock, n.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, September 2022.
  14. ^ C[harles] T[albut] Onions, G. W. S. Friedrichsen, and R[obert] W[illiam] Burchfield, editors (1966), “spatchcock”, in The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Clarendon Press, published 1983, →ISBN, page 850, column 2.
  15. ^ “spatchcock, v.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, March 2022; “spatchcock, v.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Further reading

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