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spatchcock - 3 dictionary results

spatch⋅cock

  [spach-kok]
Use spatchcock in a Sentence
–noun
1. a fowl that has been dressed and split open for grilling.
–verb (used with object)
2. to prepare and roast (a fowl) in this manner.
3. to insert or interpolate, esp. in a forced or incongruous manner: Additional information has been spatchcocked into the occasional random footnote.
Origin:
1775–85; appar. alter. of spitchcock; popular interpretation as shortening of dispatch cock is prob. specious
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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spatch·cock   (spāch'kŏk)   
n.  A dressed and split chicken for roasting or broiling on a spit.
tr.v.   spatch·cocked, spatch·cock·ing, spatch·cocks
  1. To prepare (a dressed chicken) for grilling by splitting open.
  2. To introduce or interpose, especially in a labored or unsuitable manner: "Some excerpts from a Renaissance mass are spatchcocked into Gluck's pallid Don Juan music" (Alan Rich).

[Perhaps alteration of spitchcock, a way of cooking an eel.]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Spatchcock

Spatch"cock`\, n. See Spitchcock.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
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