Dictionary

yokefellow en · NOUN

Etymology

From yoke + fellow. Compare Ancient Greek σύζυγος.

Meanings

1. A companion; a fellow labourer, a person who works at the same task as another.
   • Jesus treats his disciples as yokefellows rather than as camels and donkeys to be loaded down (23:4). 1999, David E Garland, Reading Matthew: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the First Gospel:
   • “[…] If two people like each other, why shouldn’t they consent to live together?” / “They tire of each other—they tire of each other in a month. A yokefellow is not a companion; he or she is a fellow-sufferer.” 1849, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], “The Curates at Tea”, in Shirley. A Tale. […], volume I, London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], →OCLC, page 141:
   • I’ll see their trial first. Bring in their evidence. / [To Edgar] Thou, robed man of justice, take thy place. / [To the Fool] And thou, his yokefellow of equity, / Bench by his side. c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene vi]:
   • Brain and hand, and means and muscle, are true yokefellows in modern industrialism. Without the inventor, there could be no machinery... 1922, James Ezra Darby, Jesus, an economic mediator: God's remedy for industrial and international ills:
2. (archaic) Someone joined in marriage to another; a spouse.
   • ...till new grounds of quarrel had arisen between the two unequal yokefellows who were at last fully coupled together. 1882, Edward Augustus Freeman, The Reign of William Rufus and the Accession of Henry the First:
   • [H]is industrious yoke-fellow executed every circumstance of the plan she had projected; so that, when he recovered his vision, he was an utter stranger in his own house. 1751, [Tobias] Smollett, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle […], volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), London: Harrison and Co., […], →OCLC:

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