From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishyokeyoke1 /jəʊk $ joʊk/ noun [countable] 1 TAa wooden bar used for keeping two animals together, especially cattle, when they are pulling heavy loads2 TZa frame that you put across your shoulders so that you can carry two equal loads which hang from either side of it3 → the yoke of something4 DCCa part of a skirt or shirt just below the waist or collar, from which the main piece of material hangs in folds
Examples from the Corpus
yoke• At the moment his shoulders simply felt bowed, as if some one had laid a yoke across them.• For centuries, every autumn horses like Duchess were harnessed to a yoke.• He was wearing dark trousers and a blue serge shirt with a yoke across the front.• The next stage is removing the white and yoke.• They are like a great yoke sitting on our shoulders.• Only through such an accidental, miraculous chance could anyone expect to shake off the yoke of grimly limited prospects.• Looping a seatbelt over the yoke or stick won't really help much in high winds or gusty conditions.• At times the yoke of his vocation was almost unbearable, although there is no indication that he ever regretted assuming it.yokeyoke2 verb [transitive] 1 TAto put a yoke on two animals2 UNITEto closely connect two ideas, people, or thingsyoke something to something Beauty is forever yoked to youth in our culture.→ See Verb tableExamples from the Corpus
yoke• Things that had been yoked, harnessed, held down and held back by a power that was dissolving.• The horses had been bridled and yoked to the car.• Thus neither side is any further forward, and each is adventitiously yoked to the vicissitudes of a complex metaphysical issue.• Though we were yoked together for decades, I feel as threatened as if he were the hacker.• To draw a heavy plough through wet clay soil, a pair of oxen, yoked together was used.• Furthermore, the cult which is thus yoked with such practice is supposed to be of a far different order of reality.Origin yoke1 Old English geoc 