As far as I know, only in Ireland is the word yoke used as a general term for a "thing", an implement, a contrivance. Jane Barlow in Kerrigan's Quality, published in 1894, gave the English Dialect Dictionary (EDD) the word: "One of them unnathural little yokes that rowl about wild wid big wheels is after whirreling a young gentleman off of itself below at the corner."

The word has other meanings; a yoke-stick is a wooden horseshoe-shaped collar for yoking animals; the cross-beam of a plough, at right angles to the pole; a hooked stick; a fork; a spoon.

There is the phrase to take the yoke with, figuratively to marry. The Scots poet, Grant, in one of his Lays (1884), has the couplet, "Gin Johnny tak' the yoke wi' me, I'll try to pu'my share."

In the Isle of Man, a yoke is a plank sliding in a groove, and confining a cow's neck in the cow-house, and in Yorkshire and Cheshire it is a bar or frame of wood put around an animal's neck to prevent it from straying; in Shropshire a yoke is put around the neck of a pig to prevent it breaking through a hedge.

The EDD gives: "Aye, yo bin lucky like Tom Hodges, as lost five pund, and fund a pig's yoke." This is proverbially said of any one who is unfortunate in sustaining losses.

In parts of Scotland yolk is used of a horse's harness; traces. It is also used of a wooden frame carried across the shoulders, from each end of which a pail is hung; used for carrying milk, water, etc. Hence yolk-stick, a "yoke" for carrying buckets: and the phrase as crooked as a yolk-stick, physically deformed. In Lincolnshire yokes are the chains from the sides of a shoulder-board, for carrying buckets. In Northamptonshire and Warwickshire a yoke is the quantity of water carried by means of a 'yoke'; two bucketsful.

In Wiltshire a yoke is an instrument used by thatchers for carrying the elms up to the roof. It also is the time during which a ploughman of old worked at a stretch; hence a period of steady work.

The EDD says that in farms there were generally two yokes of five hours each in the day; from seven to 12 and from one to six.

A yoke was also a tract of land that could be ploughed in a day; a yokelet is an old name for a little farm.

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