yokefellow

Noun

yokefellow (plural yokefellows)

1. A companion; a fellow labourer, a person who works at the same task as another.
   • 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...
   • “[…] 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
2. (archaic) Someone joined in marriage to another; a spouse.
   • [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
   • ...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