Other forms: bachelors
A bachelor is a man who has never married. A confirmed bachelor, an eligible bachelor, he stayed a bachelor.
The word is dated and slightly quaint now, since staying unmarried needs no name. Bachelor party is the American term for what Britain calls a stag do, and bachelor pad is a man's flat, usually said with a smile. Confirmed bachelor was long used in obituaries as a coded reference to a gay man. The other sense is a first university degree — a Bachelor of Arts — which is much the commoner use today.
1nounbachelorA man who has never married.
“He remained a bachelor and kept two dogs.”
2nounfirstA first university degree.
“She has a bachelor's degree in history.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
bachelor is an unmarried man, or a degree.
Medieval Latin baccalarius meant a young man in service, perhaps a farm worker or a junior knight. The degree took the name because a bachelor was a student not yet a master, and the marital sense came from the young man's unmarried state.
Medieval Latin
baccalārius
Old French
bacheler
Middle English
bacheler
English, today
bachelor
Built from
From Middle English bacheler, from Anglo-Norman - and Old French bacheler (modern French bachelier), from Medieval Latin baccalārius, baccalāris (compare Tuscan baccalare (“squire”)).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA