Word.ws English Dictionary

pass under the yoke

pass under the yoke verb: of a defeated army, to be humiliated by the victors.

Verb

pass under the yoke (third-person singular simple present passes under the yoke, present participle passing under the yoke, simple past and past participle passed under the yoke)

  1. (idiomatic) Of a defeated army, to be humiliated by the victors.

Forms of pass under the yoke

third-person singular presentpasses under the yoke
present participlepassing under the yoke
past participlepassed under the yoke
pastpassed under the yoke

Origin of pass under the yoke

The practice of passing under the yoke (Latin: sub iugum) was a ritual humiliation of enemies practiced by the people of ancient Italy, most notably the Romans and Samnites. Hence, the modern English word subjugate stems from the Latin "sub iugum", meaning under the yoke.

Questions about pass under the yoke

What does pass under the yoke mean?
Pass under the yoke means of a defeated army, to be humiliated by the victors.
What part of speech is pass under the yoke?
Pass under the yoke is a verb.
What is the past tense of pass under the yoke?
The past tense of pass under the yoke is passed under the yoke.

Words near pass under the yoke in the dictionary

  1. pass through the hands
  2. pass through the pikes
  3. pass throughs
  4. pass transistor
  5. pass transistors
  6. pass under the yoke
  7. pass unnoticed
  8. pass up
  9. pass up like a white chip
  10. pass urine
  11. pass water

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pass under the yoke (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “pass under the yoke.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pass_under_the_yoke. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.