[See quot. 1785 and DISPATCH sb. 12.]
1. A fowl split open and grilled after being killed, plucked and dressed in a summary fashion. Also attrib.
Orig. in Irish use, later chiefly Anglo-Indian.
1785. Grose, Dict. Vulgar T., 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.
1819. Moore, Mem. (1853), II. 317. We had a good deal of laughing at an Irishman who was of our party, on account of a bull he had made at breakfast, and which we called ‘half a nightingale’—a sort of ‘spatch-cock nightingale.’ Ibid. (1823), Fables, Holy Alliance, i. 86. Proud Prussia’s double bird of prey, Tame as a spatch-cock, slunk away.
1851. R. F. Burton, Goa, 258. Presently the ‘butler’ informs you that your breakfast, a spatchcock, or a curry with eggs,… is awaiting you.
1875. Miss Bird, Sandwich Isl. (1880), 99. Supper was ready for us;… the spatchcock and salmon reminded me of home.
2. (See quot.)
1901. A. G. Bradley, Highw. & B. Lake District, 62–3. Any official … would have run a grave risk of being made a spatchcock of, or, in other words, of his head being stuck in a rabbit hole, and his legs staked to the ground.
