Yoke
Any object whose name escapes the speaker - a contraption, a gadget, a doohickey. Also used of a person: an awful yoke is an awful one. Versatile and rural in feel.
Etymology
From Old English 'ġeoc' - the wooden bar that joined draught animals at the neck. In Scottish and Irish English the noun shifted first to '(horse) cart', then to 'vehicle' generally, then by extension to any unspecified object. 'Quare yoke' is recorded for an unusual cart in early motorcar contexts; 'a dangerous-looking yoke' (a sword) is attested in 1923.
In a sentence
These three yokes [AK-47s] we're throwin' them up to them. - Gerry Hutch, Irish Independent, 2023
Historical notes
Yoke is a productive root in Hiberno-English, generating yokeamabob, yokeamajig, yokey, and yokibus, all variations on the same placeholder logic. The pejorative use of yoke for a person ('you're an awful yoke') is gently affectionate rather than insulting in tone, and would be hard to use in print without an Irish ear at the keyboard.
Sources
- Oxford English Dictionary, entry yoke n., placeholder sense (cited via Carey 2013). · dictionary
- Carey, Stan. 'Yoke, thingamajig, doodad, and oojamaflip: meet the placeholders.' Sentence First, 26 July 2013. · other
- Irish Independent, 5 August 2023, p. 12. · other