Definition of "spatchcock"

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.]

, “Spatch cock”, in A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, London: […] S. Hooper, […]

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."

1851, Richard F[rancis] Burton, “The Voyage”, in Goa, and the Blue Mountains; or, Six Months of Sick Leave, London: Richard Bentley, […], page 9

Katniss [Everdeen] emerges alone, smeared in blood and muck and gnawing on the charred remains of a spatchcocked squirrel.An adjective use, transferred to a different animal.

2014 November 11, Robbie Collin, “The Hunger Games: Review”, in The Daily Telegraph‎, London: Telegraph Media Group, archived from the original on 2022-05-26

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.

1901 October 11, Redvers Buller, quotee, “Sir R. Buller and his critics”, in The Times, number 36,583, London: George Edward Wright, page 10, column 2

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?

1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 9: Scylla and Charybdis]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], part II [Odyssey], page 203

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 July 28, Peter Hain, “Tories sandbagged Clegg on electoral reform”, in The Guardian‎

We would have had to spatchcock together whatever coalition we could, but it was profoundly difficult, […]

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, London: Guardian News & Media, archived from the original on 2020-09-21