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Yoke   /joʊk/   Listen
Yoke

noun
1.
Fabric comprising a fitted part at the top of a garment.
2.
An oppressive power.  "They threw off the yoke of domination"
3.
Two items of the same kind.  Synonyms: brace, couple, couplet, distich, duad, duet, duo, dyad, pair, span, twain, twosome.
4.
A pair of draft animals joined by a yoke.
5.
Support consisting of a wooden frame across the shoulders that enables a person to carry buckets hanging from each end.
6.
A connection (like a clamp or vise) between two things so they move together.  Synonym: coupling.
7.
Stable gear that joins two draft animals at the neck so they can work together as a team.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Yoke" Quotes from Famous Books



... the white population of South Africa be ready to live under the protection of Britain? The yoke cannot be so heavy when men of all creeds, colours, and nationalities who have lived under that rule for years are now ready to volunteer to fight for her, even against you, who have admittedly done them no ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales

... demigods and heroes, might also be regarded as an emblem of the wily but stern policy of the Spartan State. Such was the galley of the commander of the armament, which (after the reduction of Cyprus) had but lately wrested from the yoke of Persia that link between her European and Asiatic domains, that key of the ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton

... rod, pointing to the better way; but the shielding of him was a different thing; it dragged her down so low, that in her condemnation of the Tory squib she found herself asking herself whether haply Nevil had flung off the yoke of the French lady; with the foolish excuse for the question, that if he had not, he must be bitterly sensitive to the slightest public allusion to her. Had he? And if not, how desperately faithful he was! or else how ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... has been carried in our day even to the extent of a revolt against the typical vow of marriage. It is most amusing to listen to the opponents of marriage on this subject. They appear to imagine that the ideal of constancy was a yoke mysteriously imposed on mankind by the devil, instead of being, as it is, a yoke consistently imposed by all lovers on themselves. They have invented a phrase, a phrase that is a black and white contradiction in two words—'free-love'—as if a lover ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton

... that what Sherman said about war is right; its easy to get in an' hard to get out. Reminds me of the story my ol' man tells about when he lived on a farm (You know Julie dere, I told you my old man was raised on a farm in Brooklin, N.Y.U.S.A.). He stuck his bean into a yoke, to teach a yearling calf to work double, and the way that calf started to hot foot it to the other end of Long Island was some exhibition of speed. He could have give the Empire State express a ten mile start at Peekskill and beat it ...
— Love Letters of a Rookie to Julie • Barney Stone

... mourning, she should hold to the correct form. If, however, she elects to wear black, more license is permitted her. Whatever is done, should be consistent. Thus if she simply adopts black she may have a net or all-over lace yoke in a gown, may wear hats with wings and quills or fancy feathers in black, or black flowers—which are botanical monstrosities—whereas in correct mourning she ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... community of plans and ends in the parties. This is much wanting in women, who think chiefly of persons, little of laborious aims. Two girls, who live in a multitude of evaporating impulses and dreams it were as easy to yoke a couple of humming-birds, and make them draw. Because the polarity of a grand fixed purpose is absent from it, the mind of many a woman is a heap of petty antipathies; and, where the likings are fickle, the ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger

... enter into their country, threatening to put them all to death; but admitted him and his Spaniards with great attention. He brought several of the chiefs of that country along with him to Mexico, who wished to shake off the Mexican yoke, and to become subjects to our emperor. Cortes then inquired at Pizarro for the soldiers who had accompanied him, when Pizarro answered, that finding the country rich and the people friendly, he had left them to make a plantation of cocoa, and to explore the rivers and mines. Cortes said ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr

... deep thinkers against a service which has all the mechanical artifice of Romanism without its strong appeal to the heart and the senses—dry, empty, rigid—a repetition of vain phrases. If I am ever to bow my neck beneath the Church's yoke, let me swallow the warm-blooded errors of Papacy rather than the heartless formalism ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... some life in that wee place now. There are no more Germans, and no more shells come there. The battle line has been carried on. to the East by the British; here they have redeemed a bit of France from the German yoke. And so we could stop there, in the heat of the morning, for a bit of refreshment at a cafe that was once, I suppose, quite a place in that sma' toon. It does but little business now; passing soldiers bring it some trade, but nothing like what it ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder

... it.[77] Even the Economists, who were practical men, dissolved their science into liquid history, affirming that it is not an auxiliary, but the actual subject-matter of their inquiry.[78] Philosophers claim that, as early as 1804, they began to bow the metaphysical neck beneath the historical yoke. They taught that philosophy is only the amended sum of all philosophies, that systems pass with the age whose impress they bear,[79] that the problem is to focus the rays of wandering but extant truth, and ...
— A Lecture on the Study of History • Lord Acton

... truth, or foolishness to be wisdom. She dare not hope that she can be in all things a perfect guide and example to the churches that shall come after her; as neither have the churches before her been in all things a perfect guide and example to herself. She would not impose her yoke upon future generations, nor will she submit her own neck to the yoke of antiquity. She honours all men, but makes none her idol; and she would have her own individual members regard her with honour, but neither ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold

... administrations. He assisted materially in the passing of the Execution within Gaols Act, Married Women's Property Act, and Clergy Disabilities Act, and was keenly interested in the reform of the Poor Law.] I fear the Cabinet put the yoke, not of political necessity, but of their personal prejudice against woman suffrage, on ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn

... a broken neck yoke for a weapon when Lance sprang out over a wheel and grappled with him. The old man's right arm was swollen to twice its natural size and bandaged to his shoulder. His eyes were bloodshot, his breath fetid with the fever that burned ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower

... say, That dare, for 'tis a desperate adventure, Wear on their free necks the yoke of women, Give me ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 5 • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... that 3000 men, under Schuyler and Montgomery, had marched to the other end of the lake. The colonists had been sending proclamations across the frontier to the inhabitants, saying that they were coming as friends to free them from the yoke of England and calling upon them to arise and strike for freedom. They were also in negotiation with some of the chiefs of the Five Nations and with other Indian tribes to induce them to ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty

... customers would talk to her, and when she was returned they would talk of her, and would tell others of her, as one met, not during the jolly freedom of leave when the impulse was to feel that, after all, nothing mattered much, but met out there when they were in the yoke and the harness of the thing,—met as one fresh out from home in their particular interests and shortly, charged with their special interests, returning home. That was it! A novel mission, a valuable mission, her mission. About a year. To start in about six weeks. "There, ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson

... low side into her and unhooked the tackle blocks; the man who was going to pull the bow oar raised it in his hands and with it bore the boat's bow off the ship's side; the other three men threw out their oars; and Leslie crying, "Give way, men," as he grasped the yoke lines, the little craft started on her errand of mercy, heading straight for the wreckage, the bearings of which in relation to the fast setting sun, Leslie had very carefully taken just before the ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... wretched place, celebrated for having the first palm-tree which those see who come from Madrid, and for the victory gained by Castanos over the French forces under Dupont, which occasioned the flight of Joseph Buonaparte from Madrid, and the temporary liberation of Spain from the French yoke. Castanos, who received the title of Duke de Baylen, and is compared by the Spaniards to Wellington, died about three months ago. The battle-field I passed in the night; the palm-tree I found, but it is now a mere stump, the leaves having been stripped off to ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor

... hostile spirit against Menahem in Samaria and Israel. Rezin was working toward a coalition of all the countries along the Mediterranean sea that were tributary to Tiglath-Pileser, so that in their combined strength they might rise and throw off the Assyrian yoke. ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman

... contrasts in the successive clear responses to the fugue. The difficult but very brilliant aria for soprano, "Rejoice greatly," the lovely aria, "He shall feed His Flock," originally written entire for soprano, in which Handel returns again to the pastoral style, and a short chorus ("His Yoke is ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton

... to gloom. This feeling went with him from bed to bath, and from bath to breakfast, and finally walked with him all the way to the Harley house. He was willing to sacrifice the Daily Tory and yoke himself personally to the mills of Senator Hanway's designs; but he must see Dorothy. That brightness was the bribe, unspoken and unknown to all save himself, that had brought him into Washington and these sundry and divers plots and counterplots of ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... ethereal of celestial guests With blessings greeted; and of thee, O son Of wise Rebecca, how at eventide, In Aran's valley sweet, and by the well, Where happy swains in friendly converse met, Thou didst with Laban's daughter fall in love; Love, that to exile long, and suffering, And to the odious yoke of servitude, Thy patient soul ...
— The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi • Giacomo Leopardi

... exertions; and sure it is a boast as honourable to have those capacities which are necessary to the foundation of a family, as to be descended from one who possessed them some centuries before. The Hay of Loncarty, who bequeathed his bloody yoke to his lineage,—the 'dark gray man,' who first founded the house of Douglas, had yet less of ancestry to boast than I have. For thou knowest, Mary, that my name derives itself from a line of ancient warriors, although ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... this we pray in vain, Unless He does in our affections reign. How fond it were to wish for such a King, And no obedience to his sceptre bring, Whose yoke is easy, and His burthen light; His service freedom, ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various

... Ralph and mysel' we were walking up to the Moss together ya day, when we heard Angus and Wilson at a bout of words. Wilson he said to Angus with a gay, bitter sneer, 'Ye'll fain swappit wi' me yet,' said he. 'He'll yoke wi' an unco weird. Thy braw chiel 'ul tryste wi' th' hangman soon, I wat.' And Angus he was fair mad, I can tell ye, and he said to Wilson, 'Thoo stammerin' and yammerin' taistrel, thoo; I'll pluck a lock of thy threep. Bring the ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine

... Tribes will welcome the Proposal; For long their galled Necks have felt the Yoke, Long wish'd for Freedom from his partial Sway, In favour of the proud incroaching Britons. Nay, they have oft, in spite of his Displeasure, Rush'd forth like Wolves upon their naked Borders, And now, like Tygers broken from ...
— Ponteach - The Savages of America • Robert Rogers

... Thee." And then, as though He could see those great crowds to whom they had been ministering in His name, He said, "Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For My yoke is easy and My ...
— Quiet Talks on Service • S. D. Gordon

... of love, but, in a larger measure, of his rebellion against the tyranny of convention. Henceforth his Sunday clothes might hang in the closet, for he would never again bend his neck to the starched yoke of custom. Everything had been for Molly forever. Her smiles or her frowns, her softness or her cruelty, would make no difference to him in the future—for had not Molly openly implied that she preferred Mr. Mullen? So this was the end of it all—the ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow

... Religious services must be reduced, in short, to his own bare standard. Next, the Genevan and Knoxian "kirk discipline" must be introduced. No "power or liberty (must) be permitted to any, of what estate, degree, or authority they be, either to live without the yoke of discipline by God's word commanded," or "to alter . . . one jot in religion which from God's mouth thou hast received. . . . If prince, king, or emperor would enterprise to change or disannul the same, that he be of thee reputed enemy ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang

... these negro brutes, who ape the airs of civilisation and yet after a century of freedom are more uncivilised in their habits and mode of life than the African slaves, their forefathers whom Toussaint- L'Overture, as he styled himself, their leader, freed from the yoke of their French masters a hundred years ago, that I feel the glorious name 'republic' to be dishonoured when associated with such vile wretches, wretches a thousand times worse than the Fantees of the West Coast, from whom they ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson

... a long line of genuine Nederlanders, who, though they remained in the city of New-Amsterdam after the conquest, and throughout the usurpation, have never in their hearts been able to tolerate the yoke imposed upon them. My worthy father, who was one of the last of the cocked hats, had a little knot of cronies, of his own stamp, who used to meet in our wainscoted parlor, round a nut-wood fire, talk over old times, ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving

... good husbanding of the farm, than I hired a half breed, well known in those parts, and subsequently a Winnebago Indian, to whose wigwam the half breed introduced me at my request. And with these two, the one a veritable savage, and the other very nearly related to him, I set off with a wagon, a yoke of oxen, a large tent, and abundance of provisions, on ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... disagreeable for his tormentors. So far, however, there are no signs of a revolt among the shorn lambs in this country. They patiently bend their necks to the collar—the kindest, most loving and devoted helpmates that ever plodded under the matrimonial yoke. ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory

... from her neck the yoke, and rent the fetter, and mocked the rod: Shrines of old that she decked with gold she turned to dust, to the dust she trod: What is she, that the wind and sea should fight beside her, and ...
— Poems and Ballads (Third Series) - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... did men enter houses; {those} houses were caverns, and thick shrubs, and twigs fastened together with bark. Then, for the first time, were the seeds of Ceres buried in long furrows, and the oxen groaned, pressed by the yoke {of ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso

... would not feel at home with a cart whose wheels moved silently. The mode of harnessing is precisely that which so simple a vehicle requires. From the front of the cart projects a pole, and to this pole are hitched a pair of camels by a yoke that passes over their shoulders. In fact, the entire harness is nothing more than a wooden yoke and a ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various

... June 1857 was the centenary of the battle of Plassy, and the sepoys believed on that day they should finally throw off the British yoke. On the night of the 22nd, the barrack held by the British under the command of Captain Mowbray Thomson was threatened with a grand attack. Numbers of rebels were seen gathering from all directions ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston

... keeping with such a character that he should attempt any candid repudiation of his long-worn yoke, or declare any spirit of conversion, but in him was a ferment ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... Hour! that sleep'st on pillowing clouds afar, O rise and yoke the Turtles to thy car! Bend o'er the traces, blame each lingering Dove, And give me to the bosom of my Love! My gentle Love, caressing and carest, 5 With heaving heart shall cradle me to rest! Shed the warm tear-drop from her smiling eyes, Lull with fond woe, and medicine ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... He looked for Truth, nor ever had a doubt Whether she might not hide in some deep well Rather than flaunt her modest purity In dusty highways. With my disposition To challenge all that human dogmatism Imperious would impose upon my thought, What pretty yoke-fellows for life should we, Arthur and I, have been! Misled by hopes Which were inspired too fondly by my mother, He, too, proposed, and was of ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent

... complete obedience from her children. The eldest son, called the Chevalier de Bonnoeil, after a property near the Chateau of Donnay, in the environs of Falaise, supported the maternal yoke patiently; he was an officer in the Royal Dragoons at the time of the Revolution. His younger brother, Timoleon de Combray, was of a less docile nature. On leaving the military school, as his father ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre

... says the Countess G——, "every day more and more took possession of his soul. Adversity and the companionship of great thoughts strengthened him so much, that he was able to cast off the yoke of even ordinary passions, only retaining those among the number which ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... without the aid of you and the class you represent if I could, but I cannot. You would do without my aid if you could, but you cannot. Betray me, and whatever blood money you get, it will not be that freedom which you want. We are obliged to work together, unequal yoke-fellows as we are. ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston

... blood permeated the veins of the majority of the Spaniards; but a religious despotism completely subdued the minds of all, and Spain, under the yoke of the Jesuits, became a land more famed for its autos da fe than for its progress in the fine arts and sciences, which, to a ...
— Tales from the Lands of Nuts and Grapes - Spanish and Portuguese Folklore • Charles Sellers and Others

... entered the house in quest of amatory adventure. Leporello is weary of the service in which he is engaged, and contrasts his state with that of the Don. (Air: "Notte e giorno faticar.") He will throw off the yoke and be a gentleman himself. He has just inflated himself with pride at the thought, when he hears footsteps, and the poltroon in his nature asserts itself. He hides behind the shrubbery. Don Giovanni hurries from the house, concealing his features with his cloak and impeded by Donna ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... declarations, no sooner did the enfranchised class enter upon the exercise of their usurped powers than they proceeded to alienate from the mothers of humanity rights declared to be inseparable from humanity itself! Had they thrust the British yoke from the necks of their wives and daughters as indignantly as they thrust it from their own, the legal subjection of the women of to-day would not stand out as it now does—the reproach of our republican government. As if sons did not follow the condition of the mothers—as if daughters had no ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... tempting than he had been thinking, with his head for so many weeks full of worldly ideas. He was thrilled anew, and his resolve hesitated before the fine pallor of her face, the slim lines of her figure, and the glimpses of her smooth white skin through the openwork in the yoke and sleeves of her blouse. But, instead of responding she drew back, just a little. He instantly suspected her of being in the state of mind into which he had been trying to get himself. He dropped her hand. A trifling incident, but a trifle is enough to cut the communications between ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips

... think, Julian," replied Mr Carden, "that the necessity which compels you to go up as a sizar will be good for you in many ways. Poverty, self-denial, the bearing of the yoke in youth, are the highest forms of discipline for a brave and godly manhood. The hero and the prophet are rarely found in soft clothing or kingly houses; they are never chosen from the palaces of Mammon ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar

... a good thing for a hero to die in his youth; for then is he perfect. The bark is not broken on the wand nor the neck worn by the yoke. ...
— The Treason and Death of Benedict Arnold - A Play for a Greek Theatre • John Jay Chapman

... spirit, that young lord said, "he wished what he was about to propose had come from some person of better known and more established character. Since, however, it lay with him to be spokesman, he had to state to the Chiefs assembled, that those who wished to throw off the base yoke which fanaticism had endeavoured to wreath round their necks, had not a moment to lose. 'The Covenanters,'" he said, "after having twice made war upon their sovereign, and having extorted from him every request, reasonable or unreasonable, which they thought proper to demand—after ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott

... orders not only of Sir Hew Dalrymple, the governor of Gibraltar, as commander-in-chief, but of Sir Harry Burrard, when he should arrive, as second in command. Wellesley had received general instructions to afford "the Spanish and Portuguese nations every possible aid in throwing off the yoke of France," and was empowered to disembark at the mouth of the Tagus. Having obtained trustworthy information at Coruna and Oporto, he decided rather to begin his campaign from a difficult landing-place south of Oporto at the mouth of the Mondego, and to march thence ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick

... screams! on my feet fall vain tears As the roar of my laughter redoubles their fears. I am naked. At armor of steel I should joke— True, I'm helmed—a brass pot you could draw with ten yoke. ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo

... all these and bore up, even in defeat. Some of the keenest hits of all the war—tinctured though they be with natural bitterness—are recalled from those days, when the beaten, but defiant, Rebel was passing under the victor's yoke. ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... victorious army at Camden; strong garrisons at Georgetown and Jacksonborough, with swarms of thievish and bloody minded tories, filling up all between; and the spirits of the poor whigs so completely cowed, that they were fairly knocked under to the civil and military yoke of the British, who, I ask again, will believe, that in this desperate state of things, one little, swarthy, French-phizzed Carolinian, with only thirty of his ragged countrymen, issuing out of the swamps, should have dared to turn his ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems

... answered, turning to spit at a butterfly that hovered near. "I'm a free-born Briton, I am, as scorns the furrin' yoke!" ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol

... with many others, took their families and negroes and went south, taking what they could in wagons, for there were no railroads then in that section. There was quite a train with the droves of cattle, mules and horses. One wagon had six yoke of oxen to it; had to get into it by a ladder, the kind that was used to freight across the plains. The family went in the family carriage that my father brought from Kentucky. I remember the time when this carriage was purchased, with the two dapple gray horses, and silver mounted ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation

... and rough-haired, one of them carroty red, the other brindle and white, were slouching inertly along the narrow backwoods road. From habit they sagged heavily on the yoke, and groaned huge windy sighs, although the vehicle they were hauling held no load. This structure, the mere skeleton of a cart, consisted of two pairs of clumsy, broad-tired wheels, united by a long tongue of ash, whose tip was ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts

... spirit of the times, an' the spirit of the times has changed. It's all big business now, an' we're the small potatoes. Why, I've heard our folks talk of livin' in the Western Reserve. That was all around what's Ohio now. Anybody could get a farm them days. All they had to do was yoke their oxen an' go after it, an' the Pacific Ocean thousands of miles to the west, an' all them thousands of miles an' millions of farms just waitin' to be took up. A hundred an' sixty acres? Shucks. In the early ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London

... routine, and proceeded like clockwork. Each patient ox voluntarily drew near, and stood, waiting to be yoked with his fellow and chained to his daily task. So well did each know his place by the side of his mate that the driver had only to place one end of the yoke on the neck of the "off" ox, known, for example, as "Bright," and hold the other end toward the "nigh" ox, saying, "Come under here, Buck," and the obedient fellow placed himself in position. Then the bows were placed and keyed, and "Bright" and "Buck" were ...
— Crossing the Plains, Days of '57 - A Narrative of Early Emigrant Tavel to California by the Ox-team Method • William Audley Maxwell

... upon you, and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls; for My yoke is easy, and My burden is ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman

... your other chiefs bound. As for you, you can have your lives on one condition. I will set two spears upright in the ground, and put a third spear across, and every man of you, giving up your arms and your cloaks, shall pass under this yoke, and may then ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... played. Four horses galloped in tied to a yoke, to which the bull was fastened, and swiftly dragged out of the arena. This last part had a fine effect, reminding one of the Roman sacrifice. In a similar manner, eight bulls were done to death. The scene is altogether fine, the address amusing, but the wounding and tormenting of ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca

... rivalry in time of peace, and by man-power and machine-power in war. If that should be the result of all our agonies, the burden which must be laid upon the peoples of these empires, and the intolerable anticipation of what is to come, will make their yoke seem indeed a heavy one; will probably bring about their disintegration; and will end that ascendancy of Western civilisation over the world which the last four centuries have established. And justly; since Western civilisation will thus be made to stand not for justice ...
— The Expansion of Europe - The Culmination of Modern History • Ramsay Muir

... When the forty yoke of oxen were all harnessed together, the drovers cracked all their whips at once, so that it sounded like a clap of thunder and the whole team began to ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis

... to comprehend them." For this reason, misfortune is often the lot of the inventor before his time, though glory and profit may belong to his successors. Hence the gift of inventing not unfrequently involves a yoke of sorrow. Many of the greatest inventors have lived neglected and died unrequited, before their merits could be recognised and estimated. Even if they succeed, they often raise up hosts of enemies in the persons whose methods they propose ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles

... produced, by contrast, in the orbit round the eye. Now and then amusing things happened. The onion-man was a joy long waited for. This worthy was a tall and bony Jersey Protestant with a raucous voice, who strode up our street several times a week, carrying a yoke across his shoulders, from the ends of which hung ropes of onions. He used to shout, at abrupt intervals, in a tone ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse

... Duke of Mayenne issued the address to the States-General of the kingdom, to meet at an early day in order to make arrangements to secure religion and peace, and to throw off the possible yoke of the heretic pretender. The great seal affixed to the document represented an empty throne, instead of the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... the states have suffrage that the big fight will really begin," Beulah answered wearily. "It's the habit of wearing the yoke ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley

... clouds above, for she give the signal for ploughing and shows the season of rainy winter; but she vexes the heart of the man who has no oxen. Then is the time to feed up your horned oxen in the byre; for it is easy to say: 'Give me a yoke of oxen and a waggon,' and it is easy to refuse: 'I have work for my oxen.' The man who is rich in fancy thinks his waggon as good as built already—the fool! He does not know that there are a hundred ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod

... shortly be twice as stout as they are now, 45 Then I'll yoke thee to my cart like a pony in the plough; My playmate thou shalt be; and when the wind is cold Our hearth shall be thy bed, our ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth

... Wherefore though they be not in childhood, they be oft punished with pains of childhood. Other servants there be, the which being taken with strangers and aliens and with enemies be bought and sold, and held low under the yoke of thraldom. The third manner of servants be bound freely by their own good will, and serve for reward and for hire. And these commonly ...
— Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus • Robert Steele

... their offerings, And to make nothing of their land and laws? Or, hast thou seen them honouring villany? That cannot be. Long time the cause of this Hath come to me in secret murmurings From malcontents of Thebes, who under yoke Turned restive, and would not accept my sway. Well know I, these have bribed the watchmen here To do this for some fee. For nought hath grown Current among mankind so mischievous As money. This brings cities to their fall: This drives men ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles

... with snarling up our native appointments, Congress complicated matters still more dangerously by its treatment of foreigners. The members of Congress were colonists, and the fact that they had shaken off the yoke of the mother country did not in the least alter their colonial and perfectly natural habit of regarding with enormous respect Englishmen and Frenchmen, and indeed anybody who had had the good fortune to be born in Europe. The result was that they distributed commissions and gave ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge

... said the Major, "that we ought to steal a march upon them. Our oxen are in excellent condition, and may travel till to-morrow evening without feeling it. Let us yoke and be off at once, now that it is dark. The moon will rise about two o'clock in the morning, but before that the wagons will be twelve or fifteen miles off. Alexander and I, with Bremen, will remain here with our horses and wait till the moon rises, to see if we ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat

... the slopes of the coast range, and across the passes that lead into the high plateau behind. Within two years from 6,000 to 10,000 persons set forth. They travelled in large covered wagons drawn by ten or twelve yoke of oxen, and they were obliged to travel in parties of no great size, lest their cattle should exhaust the pasture along the track they followed. There was, however a general concert of plan among them, and most of the smaller ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce

... the spear across his shoulder like a pikeman, since it was no use to trail it upon the earth, and in this fashion he started on. But Rubezahl continued his tricks by pressing on the messenger as though he had got a yoke on his back. He changed the spear from one shoulder to the other, until at last, from very weariness, he threw away the bewitched weapon, imagining that the Evil One must possess it, and went ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous

... which I struck him, the second one tripped over the fallen body and also went down with my assistance. The third man suddenly found the frame of the well-made chair fitting around his neck like the yoke of an ox. I did my best to pull his head off in order to recover my weapon, but his neck was tougher than the joints of white oak, and the two long legs that went to make up the back of the chair came off in my hand, thus giving me a bludgeon ...
— A Little Union Scout • Joel Chandler Harris

... himself, or even—as it seemed to him—of making the universe, into anything he wishes: should it be to art, to science, to love of woman, or to practical activities? It is true that some people are devoid of this impulse, and on entering life at once place their necks under the first yoke that offers itself and honestly labour under it for the rest of their lives. But Olenin was too strongly conscious of the presence of that all-powerful God of Youth—of that capacity to be entirely transformed ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy

... therefore stretch'd his yoke in vain, The plowman lost his sweat; and the green corn Hath rotted ere his youth attain'd a beard; The fold stands empty in the drowned field, And crows are fatted with ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs

... royal caprices of a recent tenant of the palace to emulate her chaste prototype of the silver bow by choosing this artistic basin for her ablutions, a sufficient number of civil guards being posted to prevent the approach of Castilian Actaeons. Ford aptly remarks of these extravagant follies: "The yoke of building kings is grievous, and especially when, as St. Simon said of Louis XIV. and his Versailles, 'II se plut ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay

... she knits and sings, While ever the pendulum tireless swings The moments around, with its tick and stroke, Nor hastes for the festal, nor lags for the yoke. And grandmother never repines at her fate Of being the ...
— Fun And Frolic • Various

... thus: He also therefore committed the sword into the magistrates' hands, that they might repress faults committed not only against the second table, but also against the first; therefore we affirm, that their laws and statutes ought to be obeyed, tribute to be paid, and other burdens to be borne, the yoke of subjection voluntarily to be undergone, yea, though the magistrates should be infidels, so long as the supreme government of God remains perfect and untouched, Matt. xxiv.; Acts iv. 17, and v. ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London

... against the tyranny of the nobles; in these days the cry is against that of capitalists, against abuses of power, which may be merely the inevitable galling of the social yoke, called Compact by Rousseau, Constitution by some, Charter by others; Czar here, King there, Parliament in Great Britain; while in France the general levelling begun in 1789 and continued in 1830 has paved ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac

... great-heart gave but one hoarse cry and fell upon the tyrant tooth and nail. This is the tale of a soul's tragedy.[15] After three years of unavailing chivalry, he suddenly, in one hour, threw off the yoke of obligation; had he been Shakespeare he would then have written Troilus and Cressida[16] to brand the offending sex; but being only a little dog, he began to bite them. The surprise of the ladies whom ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson

... on them castles and lands, supplying them with riches, and providing them with retainers; that with these gentlemen around him, and with their help, he may maintain his power, while they through him may gratify their ambition; all others being constrained to endure a yoke, which force and force alone imposes on them. For when in this way there comes to be a proportion between him who uses force and him against whom it is used, each stands fixed in ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli

... afternoon the Twins devoted themselves to strengthening the princess' spirit with no less ardor than they devoted themselves to strengthening her body. They adjured her again and again to thrust off the yoke of the baroness. The last pregnant words of Erebus to her were: "You just call her an old ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson

... Pentland Hills (in 1666), in which the Covenanters, driven to desperation, made an unsuccessful effort to throw off the tyrannical yoke, severer laws were enacted against them. Their wily persecutor, also being well aware of the evil influence of disagreement among men, threw a bone of contention among them in the shape of royal acts of Indulgence, as they were styled, by which ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne

... story of the process of law, or its many postponements or disappointments. Long ago they had set their hearts upon marrying on Easter Day, 1840; they had determined not to permit their father to drive them past this date. But they went meekly enough under the yoke of the law and passed many a month until it seemed to the litigants that the condition of waiting for a decision was to be their permanent manner of life. But suddenly, as Litzmann says, "there stood Happiness, long besought, ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes

... Tone, one of the leading members of the Irish Revolutionary party, had been for some time resident in Paris, engaged in negotiations with the Directory, with the view of obtaining French support for the Irish in their intended attempt to throw off the yoke of England. About the middle of December, 1796, a large French fleet, under the Admiral Villaret-Joyeuse, sailed from Brest, having on board an army of f twenty-five thousand men, commanded by General ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay

... It was, however, from the neglect of such a principle of combination, that the several nations of the country, who might have prevailed by confederated strength, fell one after another under the imperial yoke. Yet, once in the field the Inca did not usually show any disposition to push his advantages to the utmost, and urge his foe to extremity. In every stage of the war, he was open to propositions for peace; and although he sought to reduce his enemies by carrying off their harvests and distressing ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... but when Biddy asked for a horse to put to the car, her brother refused, for the only horse not at work he was going to yoke in a cart that moment, to send a lamb to the town. Biddy vowed she would have a horse, and her brother swore the lamb should be served first, till Biddy made a compromise, and agreed to take the lamb under the seat of the car, and ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover

... must interrupt my stream of eloquence and spout forth a stream of water to replenish the trough for this teamster and his two yoke of oxen, who have come from Topsfield, or somewhere along that way. No part of my business is pleasanter than the watering of cattle. Look! how rapidly they lower the water-mark on the sides of the trough, till their capacious stomachs are moistened with a gallon ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... now wearied of the Danish yoke. "Why wear the Danish yoke," they asked, "and be ruled ...
— Comic History of England • Bill Nye

... Barm's, we waited in her parlour, which was hung round with most beautiful pictures of Joseph and his Brethren, besides two stucco parrots on the chimney-piece, amusing ourselves with looking at them, as a pastime like, till Benjie wakened; on the which I made Tammie yoke his beast, and rowing the bit callant in his mother's shawl, took him into my arms in the cart, and after shaking hands with all and sundry twice or thrice over, we bade them a "good-night," and ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir

... age. It was several yards wide and was encircled by numerous embroidered ruffles. The skirt was sewed on to a tight, straight body-waist that was much newer than the skirt and this waist was topped by a rose-colored crocheted yoke. "Mrs. Fannie Dean made dat for me," declared Lina. "Look at dis old black shawl. See how big it is? Dat's what I used to wear for a wrop on church days 'fore I ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration

... to all matters affecting the believers over whom the Holy Ghost had made them overseers. The children of God had been kept from heresy and schism under their joint pastoral care; and all these blessings Mr. Muller and his true yoke-fellow humbly traced to the mercy and grace of the great Shepherd and Bishop of souls. Thus far over one hundred and seventy had been converted and admitted to fellowship, making the total number of communicants three hundred and seventy, nearly equally divided ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson

... being perceived. This happiness does not belong to colonies when they reach the critical juncture of emancipation; and least of all to Spanish America, engaged in the struggle at first not to obtain complete independence, but to escape from a foreign yoke. May these party agitations be succeeded by a lasting tranquillity! May the germ of civil discord, disseminated during three centuries to secure the dominion of the mother-country, gradually perish; and may productive and commercial Europe be convinced that to perpetuate the political ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt

... had this same experience. The Sugambri and their allies, owing to the absence of Augustus and the fact that the Gauls were restive under the yoke of slavery, had become hostile, and he therefore occupied the subject territory before them, sending for the foremost men on the pretext of the festival which they celebrate even now about the altar of Augustus at Lugdunum. Also he observed the Celtae crossing ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio

... unfortunate party passed Fort Laramie, while we were there. Not one of their missing oxen had been recovered, though they had remained encamped a week in search of them; and they had been compelled to abandon a great part of their baggage and provisions, and yoke cows and heifers to their wagons to carry them forward upon their journey, the most toilsome and hazardous part of which ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... this school some day, you might have seen a boy sitting on a punishment bench all alone. This was a fellow who had told a lie or used bad language. He was put there as not fit to sit near anybody else. If he committed the offense often, a yoke would be put round his neck, as if he were a brute. Sometimes, however, the teacher would give the scholars their choice of a blow on the hand or a seat on the punishment bench. They ...
— Stories of American Life and Adventure • Edward Eggleston

... yoke-mate's deep bay pealed like a trumpet, from a few yards up the roadway. He had struck the broad, frank trail of the other three negroes. The "puppy," still in leash, replied in a note hardly less deep and mellow, but the whip ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable

... busy at work, the men drawing out saw-logs with two or three yoke of oxen; the women very busy with the birch-bark or basket-making. We found the Chief's wife sitting in a very airy apartment, there being nothing over her head but a few twisted sticks, on which the bark had not yet been laid. When we ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson

... a yoke of oxen and a Blackhawk colt, and two hundred dollars in gold were resting heavily in his little cherry-wood desk in the farm-house sitting-room. One day he took ten of these gold-pieces and went to town; not to the cross-roads, but to the larger place, some ten miles ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo

... on her own. "Ah, my dear madam," says she, "I know the present state of your mind, by what I have myself often felt formerly. I am no stranger to the melancholy tone of a midnight clock. It was my misfortune to drag on a heavy chain above fifteen years with a sottish yoke-fellow. But how can I wonder at my fate, since I see even your superior charms cannot confine a husband from the bewitching pleasures of a bottle?" "Indeed, madam," says Amelia," I have no reason to complain; Mr. Booth is one of the soberest ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding

... boon summer; but at random wrought In all things, till I taught them to discern The risings and the settings of the stars; The use of numbers, crown of sciences, Was my invention; mine were letters too, The implement of mind in all its works. First I trained beasts to draw beneath the yoke, The collar to endure, the rider bear, And thus relieve man of his heaviest toils. First taught the steed, obedient to the rein, To draw the chariot, wealth's proud appanage. Nor, before me, did any launch the barque With its white wings to rove the ocean wave. These blessings, hapless ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith

... the precipice when the hind wheel of the wagon slipped on a smooth stone, the vehicle tilted and being top-heavy upset and was precipitated into the abyss, dragging with it the oxen who, in their fall, carried down Mr. Hinman who stood beside the wheel yoke. ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler

... good to see your continual services receive recognition, and to know you about to enter a more promising sphere. Your new position does not, indeed, free you from all effort and exertion, but you have long since become accustomed to bear the yoke on work-days like a man, and although the yoke may not appear altogether enviable, still it is always the most honorable and ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated

... circumstancaes. His father was a self-made man, stern and unyielding. Abbe Bonnet had an older brother, and a sister whom he counseled with his mother to marry as soon as possible, in order to release the young woman from the terrible paternal yoke. ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe

... washed down, and emptied at the conclusion of that ceremony; while the pinnace, which was stowed bottom-up in the launch, was liberally soused with water at the same time. In addition to this the proper complement of oars and rowlocks, the stretchers, boat-hook, mop, baler, anchor, rudder, yoke, and tiller, together with the compass, masts, and sails, were always stowed in the boat to which they belonged, and were carefully overhauled once every week under ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood

... when at last the days for the sane complete discussion of our sexual problems come, it will give us anything at all in the way of "Liberty," as most people understand that word. In the place of the rusty old manacles, the chain and shot, the iron yoke, cruel, ill-fitting, violent implements from which it was yet possible to wriggle and escape to outlawry, it may be the world will discover only a completer restriction, will develop a scheme of neat gyves, light but efficient, beautifully adaptable to the wrists and ankles, ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells

... Cape Dutch have been waiting their chance, and now their day has come; they will throw off their mask and your yoke at the same instant, and 300,000 Dutch ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke

... several accounts, and among the rest for monopolising the trade on the Malabar coast.—Astl. I. 43. a. We may easily conceive that one strong ground of favour to the Portuguese at Cochin, was in hopes by their means to throw off the yoke ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr

... imaginations and every high thing which exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and to bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. Yet, O Lord, while they are subjected to this gentle and blessed yoke, enrich this Institution, we pray thee, with ample streams of all sound learning and science; and as we are taught in thy holy word that the Lawgiver of thy ancient people was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and the blessed apostle St. Paul, profited ...
— McGill and its Story, 1821-1921 • Cyrus Macmillan

... ceremony of priestly prelibation as it was practiced in the Kingdom of Malabar, Forbes writes as follows: "The ecclesiastic power took precedence of the civil on this particular point, and the sovereign himself passed under the yoke. Like the other women, the queen had to submit to the right of prelibation exercised by the high priest, who had a right to the first three nights, and who was paid fifty pieces of gold besides for his trouble." Forbes: Oriental Memoirs, ...
— Religion and Lust - or, The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and Sexual Desire • James Weir

... and peace, and between the Protestants and Henry IV. some little mutual confidence and friendliness. Mornay had made up his mind to serve forever a king who had saved his country. He remained steadfast and active in his creed, but without falling beneath the yoke of any narrow-minded idea, preserving his patriotic good sense in the midst of his fervent piety, and bearing with sorrowful constancy his friends' bursts of anger and his king's exhibitions of ingratitude. Between 1597 and 1605 three incidents supervened which put to the ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... season. I may be led, but shall never lead again. He does not deserve a crown that will not dare for it; nor does he deserve the hearts of a generous people that would not dare everything to free them from the yoke of a foreign tyrant. Excuse me, gentlemen,—I go too far, and am giving you offence; but I assure you it is not meant. My heart is full of bitterness, and I forget what ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton

... me?" said the other. "Oh, I see your shoulder is galled and your neck shows mark of the yoke." The old bullock answered "Whether my master treats me well or ill I owe him money and have to stay here until I have paid him off. When I have paid him five hundred rupees I shall go." "How will ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas

... and fern and tangled trees Twelve panting creatures broke, And bending low their stately knees They knelt beneath the yoke. ...
— The Book of Saints and Friendly Beasts • Abbie Farwell Brown

... Yoke, or Bar. A soft iron body across the ends of a horseshoe magnet, to enable the magnet to retain its magnetism ...
— Electricity for Boys • J. S. Zerbe

... pushed on, floundering in muddy pools and sinking in belts of mire. The road had been made long since, by slave labor, when the Spaniards ruled, and had fallen into ruin, like the country, when their yoke was broken. Kit could trace the ancient causeway across the swamps and wondered when another strong race would put their stamp on the land. The descendants of the conquerors had sunk into apathetic sloth; the blood of the dark-skinned peoples that ran in their veins had quenched ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss

... to the soil! Pretty optimist phrase We are so, and have been, from Gurth's simpler days, Though now platform flowers of speech—pleasant joke!— May wreath the serf's ring till men scarce see the yoke. Attached to the soil! The soil clings to our souls! Young labour's scant guerdon, cold charity's doles, The crow-scarer's pittance, the poor-house's aid All smell of it! Tramping with boots thickly clayed From brown field or furrow, or lowered at last In our special six-feet by ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 24, 1891 • Various

... of 1785 concludes with the now famous words: "To the end that this may be a government of laws and not of men." That is the essence of the spirit of American government. Our forefathers had arisen and thrown off the yoke of England and her intolerable system of penal government, in which an accused had no right to testify in his own behalf and under which he could be hung for stealing a sheep. "Liberty!" "Liberty or death!" That was the note ringing ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train

... slaves let their masters bring them into this state? Why didn't they fight as our forefathers did when they threw off the yoke of England's laws?" inquires a bright-eyed lad who has just risen from the reading of a history of ...
— A Child's Anti-Slavery Book - Containing a Few Words About American Slave Children and Stories - of Slave-Life. • Various



Words linked to "Yoke" :   tucker, fellow, material, stable gear, join, oppression, doubleton, cloth, unyoke, ii, textile, fabric, support, connective, saddlery, conjoin, tack, garment, attach, connecter, inspan, connexion, mate, connection, couple, 2, deuce, connector, animal husbandry, two



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