Celibate means choosing to live without sex or marriage. A celibate priest, remain celibate, a celibate life.
The choice is what the word carries: celibate describes a decision, where abstinent describes the behaviour and asexual describes an orientation. Strictly it means unmarried and in practice it means abstaining from sex, and the two senses have never separated. Note celibacy; and that Latin caelebs meant unmarried, with no earlier history anybody can trace.
1adjectivecelibateChoosing to live without sex or marriage.
“Catholic priests take a vow to remain celibate for the rest of their lives.”
synonyms: chaste, abstinent
celibate is a quality of abstinence.
Latin caelebs means unmarried, of uncertain earlier origin. English built celibate from celibacy on the model of private and privacy.
Built from
Probably from celibate (“celibacy”) or from celibacy on the model of privacy/private, etc. Alternatively, from caelebs + -ate.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA