bachelorize

English

Alternative forms

• bachelorise

Etymology

bachelor +‎ -ize

Verb

bachelorize (third-person singular simple present bachelorizes, present participle bachelorizing, simple past and past participle bachelorized)

1. To make into a bachelor; to deprive of a spouse.
   • 1859, Walter Scott, The messiahship, or, Great demonstration, page 131:

     To eradicate all domestic and patriotic sympathies with home and "their own, their native land," and in order to have in them a militia that would feel and fight for him alone, the Pope bachelorized the whole ministry about the termination of the eleventh century.

   • 1994, Stevens Indicator - Volume 111, Issue 1, page xx:

     Nick also wrote that Elena bachelorized him for four weeks last spring when she journeyed to Honduras to visit family and friends.

   • 2009, Jason Williams, Anthus Williams, Zero Chance: Power of Love — Love of Power, page 204:

     Some of the newly bachelorized men were directed to reside in an apartment building built specifically to house ten or twelve of these divorcees, all scrambling to prove themselves obedient enough to "get new assignments" or maybe, if they were truly optimistic, to get their old families back.

2. To confer a bachelor's degree on.
   • 1856, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Adventures of Don Quixote de la Mancha, page 429:

     as if Sancho were anybody they pleased, and not that very Sancho Panza handed about in print all the world over, as Sampson Carrasco told me, who, at least, has been bachelorized at Salamanca ;

   • 1916, Ohio State University. Alumni Association, The Ohio State University Monthly - Volume 8, page 23:

     Mr. Sater wishes it distinctly understood that he belongs to the class of '95 and was rightfully bachelorized therein, but legally adopted by '97.

3. To make or become typical of a bachelor.
   • 1859, George Francis Train, Spread-Eagleism, page 50:

     Man needs woman's refining care to keep him from becoming bachelorized.

   • 2004, David Ellis, Life Sentence, page 140:

     My living room is what you'd expect, hardwood floors, simple grassy-brown furniture, oversized television, a fireplace. A former married home that's been “bachelorized,” according to Grant's wife, Audrey.

   • 2011, Etta Degering, McGuffey: The Greatest Forgotten Man, page 77:

     I suppose though your feelings have become so bachelorized that you can scarcely realize my pleasure.

   • 2014, Richard R. Pariseau, Events in the Life of an Ordinary Man, page 283:

     Eleven months after being widowed I decided it was time to bachelorize my home.

4. To live without neither spouse nor children; to live alone or with other single people.
   • 1887, Taken in: Being a Sketch of New Zealand Life, page 132:

     They of course live very cheaply, because these communities are composed of men bachelorizing together, they have no wives or children to support, as women are not allowed to leave China.

   • 1908, The Wide World Magazine, page 494.:

     Why shouldn't we two take a house and bachelorize?

   • 1923, New Zealand. Parliament, Parliamentary Debates. House of Representatives:

     The boy was no longer dependent upon his father—he could bachelorize with other lads or go into lodgings.

5. To live the life of a bachelor; to socialize without a wife.
   • 1878 July, “Jenny Gridley's Concession”, in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, volume 57, number 338:

     “You trifler!” Mrs. Armstrong was meanwhile saying. “I want you to talk seriously on this subject. It is high time that you solemnly attended to it. Do you mean to bachelorize your life out? […] "

   • 1882, L.A., “Glimpses of Modern England”, in New Outlook, volume 26, number 6, page 66:

     In the same town a country squire, a member of the county society, a scion of an old and honorable family, was guilty of the indiscretion of marrying a schoolteacher. He can lunch and club and bachelorize with any gentleman in the county, but society closes its doors absolutely upon his unfortunate wife ; and she is shut up to herself, her husband and her children.

   • 2010, Jenny Uglow, Elizabeth Gaskell:

     Eventually he agreed to 'bachelorize off comfortably guided by the wind of his own daily will', going to Dumbleton, Oxford and then London.