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The expression rabbit punch (also, rarely, rabbit’s punch) designates a sharp, chopping blow to the back of the neck delivered with the side of the hand, which can cause loss of consciousness or even death.
This expression occurred, for example, in the following from The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren (Oxford University Press, 1959), by the English folklorists Iona Opie (1923-2017) and Peter Opie (1918-1982) [chapter 10: Unpopular Children: Jeers and Torments – Tortures, page 202]:
A ‘Rabbit’s Punch’ is delivered by pulling a child’s head forward, usually by his hair, and slicing the back of his neck with the side of the hand.
The expression rabbit punch refers to the practice of killing a rabbit by delivering a sharp blow to the back of its neck, and originated in boxing. The following explanations are from Thirty Years a Boxing Referee (New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1915), by the British boxing referee Eugene Corri (circa 1857-1933) [chapter 9, pages 175 & 176]:
The occipital punch is well described by its other name, the “rabbit punch,” derived from the way in which a gamekeeper puts a rabbit out of pain. It is struck on the back of the neck, at the base of the head.
I do not like the “rabbit punch,” and it will not be my fault if one day—the sooner the better—it is forbidden. Nothing is easier than for this punch to be used in a foul way. […]
I killed the kidney punch, unfortunately not before it had been attended with permanent injuries to more than one boxer. […] I shall kill the occipital punch, too, or I very much overrate my influence with those who regulate such things. Fatal results have already accrued from the blow, and, as I argued in season and out of season for the abolition of the kidney punch, and in the end got my way, so I shall continue to denounce the “rabbit punch” till the hideous thing is banished from the art that is called noble.
All the earliest occurrences of the expression rabbit punch that I have found are from accounts of boxing matches—these early occurrences are as follows, in chronological order:
1 & 2-: From the Leicester Daily Post (Leicester, Leicestershire, England):
1-: Of Thursday 19th October 1911 [page 7, column 1]:
Twice Davis shot out a long left to the jaw, and practically that was all he did, while Taylor was dealing out punishment all the time, using his “rabbit punch” freely.
2-: Of Thursday 22nd February 1912 [page 8, column 3]:
Knock fought on much sounder lines in the eighth, nineth [sic], and tenth, Taylor slowing down. He very much resented being cautioned in the tenth for using the “rabbit punch,” and as he certainly was not holding, had reason.
3-: From The Wyalong Advocate and Mining, Agricultural and Pastoral Gazette (West Wyalong, New South Wales, Australia) of Wednesday 19th June 1912 [page 2, column 7]—reprinted from the Temora Star:
Muller forced his opponent to the ropes and landed a few rabbit punches on to Hill’s head.
4-: From Boxing (London, England) of Saturday 28th June 1913 [page 213, column 2]:
Miller chased Baverstock to all parts of the ring, dealing out two-handed punching ad lib., but the seaman replied pluckily and did quite well in patches. A hard right-hand dig to the ribs made Baverstock grunt some, and an extra hard rabbit punch nearly fell him.
There is, in Australian English, a slightly different expression: rabbit killer, also rabbit-killer punch. The first two occurrences that I have found of this expression seem to indicate that it was coined by the Australian sporting journalist William Francis Corbett (1857-1923) in accounts of boxing matches, published in The Sun (Sydney, New South Wales, Australia):
1-: Of Thursday 3rd April 1913 [page 12, column 4]—here, pug is a shortened form of pugilist:
THE RABBIT-KILLER PUNCH.
[…]
Black Paddy’s contributions to the Australian pug’s fighting kit were the leap punch and the far more effective and reliable rabbit-killing wallop. Three or four times the black leaped up as he swung or uppercut the right, but mostly the direction was not altogether true, and we consequently were unable to judge regarding the full value of that style of war; but another manner of dealing with the enemy was convincing in its effect upon that individual, and the impression it left upon the spectator. It was a punch which I hereby dub the “rabbit killer”—one that Paddy had, no doubt, practised many a time and often when roaming round the paddocks of some far-off West Australian station gathering bunny scalps at so much a hundred.
2-: Of Friday 4th April 1913 [page 11, column 4]:
Kennedy swatted the atmosphere heavily three or four times before he connected with another punch, then he missed, and, overbalancing a bit, gave Regio a chance to introduce Black Paddy’s rabbit-killer punch, but it missed its mark by inches.
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