bach

A bachelor.

Noun US, archaic

  1. A bachelor.
  2. A small hut, especially for a man living alone.
  3. Now specifically, a holiday home, typically a small, simple house of one or two rooms on the beach.
    • She stops the car by an ochre-coloured bach at the end of the beachline, by the shelter of a massive thicket of African thorn. - 1983, Keri Hulme, The Bone People, Penguin, published 1986, page 163:
    • Even before he began his chores he sunbathed naked against the east wall of the bach for half an hour. - 1984, Janet Frame, An Angel at my Table, Virago, published 2024, page 263:
    • From 1931 until his death in 1982, Sargeson lived a monastic life in a bach at Takapuna, writing in the mornings and tending his garden and entertaining friends in the latter part of the day. - 2003, Michael King, The...

    Synonyms: crib

Origin

Abbreviation of bachelor (or, in later senses, of bachelor pad).

Forms

baches

Derived

geo-bach

Noun abbreviation, alt of

  1. Clipping of bachelorette.
    • When I ask people how spending money makes them feel, so many of them respond, "Guilty." ¶ They'll give an example of how a rough day at the office led to buying a pair of shoes online or how they got a little carried...
    • Bachelorette party captions for Instagram […] Babes, baches, bikinis, and boats. - 2020 August 14, Pippa Raga, “50 of the Best IG Captions for Your Bestie's Bachelorette or Hen Party”, in Distractify, archived from the...
    • While everyone else is flocking down South for a bach bash, you'll be singing "Oh, Canada," as you spend a weekend immersed in the city's uniquely hip take on old-world European culture. - 2021 November 12, Erin...

Forms

baches

Verb

  1. To live as a bachelor; (chiefly of a man) to live without women, and do one's own cooking, housekeeping etc.
    • I hurried home to the tent—I was batching with a carpenter. - 1900, Henry Lawson, Over the Sliprails:

Forms

baches baching bached