Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a horse-drawn carriage.

1943		(con. 1850s) G.A. Little Malachi Horan Remembers 25: He saw behind him a yoke with four men in it. It was drawn by a great black horse.
1991		(con. 1930s–40s) K.C. Kearns Dublin Street Life and Lore 49: In the war years I seen maybe seventy yokes on the hazard.

2. a riding horse, as opposed to a racehorse.

1966

P. Boyle At Night All Cats Are Grey 156: Boys-a-boys, thon’s a queer looking yoke.

3. (also yokey, yokeymajig) any form of unspecified gadget or object.

1910		P.W. Joyce Eng. As We Speak It In Ireland (1979) 352: Yoke; any article, contrivance, or apparatus for use in some work.
1969		P. Boyle All Looks Yellow to the Jaundiced Eye 27: ‘Wh-Wh-What are you doing with that yoke?’ I demanded.
1979		H. Leonard A Life (1981) Act II: An’ do you ’member Cussin’s shop? With the yoke for slicin’ the rashers.
1988		R. Doyle Commitments 4: Does he call tha’ fuckin’ yoke a synth? said Jimmy.
1990		R. Doyle Snapper 93: An’ one o’ those yokes for washin’ you arse? A bidet.
2000		F. Mac Anna Cartoon City 21: I only super-glued that yoke back on yesterday.
2015		L. McInerney Glorious Heresies 20: Toy cameras with preloaded images of the shrine; you clicked through them, holding the flimsy yokey up to the light.
2021		L. McInerney Rules of Revelation 336: [H]er plastic crate of yokeymajigs and wossnames.

4. a car, a vehicle, e.g. a police wagon, a boat.

1910		P.W. Joyce Eng. As We Speak It In Ireland (1979) 352: ‘That’s a quare yoke Bill,’ says a countryman when he first saw a motor car.
1916		Joyce Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 212: I couldn’t get any kind of a yoke to give me a lift for [...] there was a mass meeting the same day in Castletownroche and all the cars in the country were there.
1953		B. Behan Scarperer (1966) 25: Before we go out to the ould yoke.
1979		J. Morrow Confessions of Proinsias O’Toole 72: Have you any idea, young woman, how much a one mile joy-ride in that yoke costs me?
1996		(con. 1970) G. Moxley Danti-Dan in McGuinness Dazzling Dark (1996) I vi: Renault CZT 520. Wouldn’t take one of them fucking yokes if you gave it to me on a plate.

5. a person.

1961		(con. 1930s) D. Behan Teems of Times and Happy Returns 89: Wouldn’t yeh be surprised at a clever man like the Pope comin’ from an ignorant crowd of yokes like that?
1966		P. Boyle At Night All Cats are Grey 156: Boys-a-boys, thon’s a queer looking yoke.
1991		B. Quinn Smokey Hollow 89: Could you imagine her letting that oul’ yoke kiss her.
2001		G. Coughlan Everyday Eng. and Sl. 🌐 Yoke (n): [...] ya feckin yoke.
2015		L. McInerney Glorious Heresies 47: ‘A skinny yoke, wasn’t he?’.
2019		A. Killilea Boyo-wulf at https://boyowulf.home.blog 20 Mar. 🌐 Well we’ve all heard of those pure daycent kings of the Spear-Danes [...] and how the mad yokes of princes did alright for themselves.
2021		Breen & Conlon Hitmen 230: ‘I know where the yoke is’ [ibid.] 249: ‘[Y]ou’ve got to go [...] to collect the yoke now.

6. a (young) woman.

1969		T. Murphy Crucial Week in the Life of a Grocer’s Assistant (1978) Scene iii: An ould yoke of a mother, doing the film star on it.
1999		(con. 1919) R. Doyle A Star Called Henry (2000) 272: There’s a yoke up the stairs dying to rape me.
2001		C. McPherson Port Authority 5: A little blondie yoke with no straps on her dress and her tits held up with wire opens the door.

7. (Irish) a drug in pill form, e.g. MDMA.

2015		L. McInerney Glorious Heresies 53: [T]hey’ve heard I’ve got yokes. They sit down beside me [...] and I exchange tablets for tenners [...] I’ve popped a yoke and I’ve given her a half. She’s never done one before.
2021		L. McInerney Rules of Revelation 39: ‘It might be nice to have some chemicals. Yokes. Or trips, even’.