bachelier

Etymology

From Medieval Latin baccalārius which became Old French bacheler then bachelier, with the original sense of "noble young man who wants to become a knight", then "noble young man", thereafter "student in the first university degree". Late Latin baccalaris is given of obscure origin, probably Celtic and cognate with Old Irish bachlach (“servant”), in Catalonia, baccalarii were members of an intermediate class between knights and peasants, in Provence, the sense was "[free] peasant without a tenure".

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ba.ʃə.lje/

• Audio (Paris)

  (file)

• Audio

  (file)

Noun

bachelier m (plural bacheliers, feminine bachelière)

1. graduate of the baccalauréat

   Agrégé de philosophie, rebuté par la monotonie d'une carrière qui consiste à préparer chaque année un certain contingent de futurs bacheliers, Claude Lévi-Strauss s'orienta rapidement vers la recherche ethnographique.

2. (Canada) person holding a bachelor's degree

References

• “bachelier” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).