batchelor's fare

English

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ɛə(ɹ)

Noun

batchelor's fare (uncountable)

1. (dated) Alternative spelling of bachelor's fare.
   • 1738, Simon Wagstaff [pseudonym; Jonathan Swift], A Complete Collection of Genteel and Ingenious Conversation, According to the Most Polite Mode and Method Now Used at Court, and in the Best Companies of England. In Three Dialogues, London: Printed by B[enjamin] Motte, and C. Bathurst, at the Middle Temple-Gate in Fleet-street, →OCLC, page 61:

     Lady Anſw[erall]. Colonel, ſome Ladies of your Acquaintance have promis'd to breakfast with you, and I am to wait on them; what will you give us? / Col[onel Atwit]. Why, faith, Madam, Batchelors Fare; Bread and Cheeſe, and Kiſſes. / Lady Anſw. Poh! what have you Batchelors to do with your Money, but to treat the Ladies? you have nothing to keep but your own Four Quarters.

   • 1825, James Heney, chapter XX, in Agnes, or The Sailor’s Orphan; with Memoirs of the Dudley Family, Oxford: Published by Bartlett and Hinton; and sold at their warehouse, 17, Warwick-Square, and by G[eorge] Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane, London, →OCLC, pages 198–199:

     The villain of a pedlar saw his discourse was attentively heard, and flattered himself with the hopes of a supper and night's lodging; he was not deceived, for the parson was so well pleased with his conversation, that he insisted on his staying and partaking of batchelor's fare, bread and cheese, and mild ale; the latter he supplied his guest with so immoderately that he was obliged to convey him to his apartment.

   • 1840, John Patterson, chapter III, in Camp and Quarters: Or Scenes and Impressions of Military Life. Interspersed with Anecdotes of Various Well-known Characters who Flourished in the War. [...] In Two Volumes, volume II, London: Saunders and Otley, Conduit Street, →OCLC, page 78:

     Neither batchelor's fare, nor lodging-house dinners have any attraction in his esteem; nor is he a convert to the cold-meat and pic-nic school;—no, no!—to please his palate, there must be a regularly-built, smoking, well-sustaining table.

   • 1942, J[ohn] H[arvey] Powell, Richard Rush, Republican Diplomat, 1780–1859, Philadelphia, Pa.: University of Pennsylvania Press, →OCLC, page 67:

     I am quite alone, but can give you batchelor's fare.