yoke

What it means

1. 1.

   A thing whose name you have forgotten, or cannot be bothered with. Covers machinery, gadgets, tools and objects of any size.

2. 2.

   Of a person: a strange or troublesome one — 'she's a fierce yoke'. Less common and never flattering.

3. 3.

   An ecstasy tablet, in the drug slang of the 1990s rave scene onwards.

In use

• Hand me that yoke there, the round one.

• The yoke for opening the wine is in the drawer.

  Note: The everyday sense. Irish speech uses yoke where other Englishes use thingy, doohickey or whatsit.

Where it comes from

From the wooden yoke used on draught animals, generalised to any contraption and then to anything at all. The drug sense came later and is context-bound: nobody hearing 'pass me that yoke' in a kitchen thinks twice.

Other forms

Similar terms:

thingamajig, doodah