A Semantic Analysis of Bachelor and Spinster

by

Dominik Wohlfarth

1 Introduction ... 2

2 Bachelor and spinster today ... 2

3 The lexical item bachelor ... 2

4 The lexical item ´spinster´ ... 8

5 The differences between bachelor and spinster ... 9

6 Summary ... 11

7 Bibliography ... 13

1 Introduction

The following pages will discuss the semantic differences between the words spinster and bachelor. Therefore I will take a closer look at their origin, their different lexical meanings and the different ways of defining their meaning.

2 Bachelor and spinster today

When one looks up the word bachelor in any ordinary dictionary today, one will most likely find a similar definition as in Oxford Advanced Learner´s Dictionary (Wehmaier 2000: 74)

Bachelor: 1) a man who has never been married. An eligible bachelor (=one that many people want to marry, especially if he is rich). A confirmed bachelor (= a person who intended never to marry, often used in newspapers to refer to a homosexual man). A bachelor flat (= one suitable for a person living alone).

For the word spinster, the Oxford Student′s Dictionary (Ruse 1988: 608) suggests:

Spinster: 1) An unmarried woman, esp an older woman.

So on the first look, the definitions seem to be very similar. The following pages though will reveal that there are indeed significant differences in the words themselves and also in their comparison.

3 The lexical item bachelor

The first and today’s most often used definition of bachelor was already mentioned, but for example on http://www.yourdictionary.com/ three more definitions are presented:

1. An unmarried man.
2. A young knight in the service of another knight in feudal times.
3. A male animal that does not mate during the breeding season, especially a young male fur seal kept from the breeding territory by older males.
4. A person who has completed the undergraduate curriculum of a college or university and holds a bachelor′s degree.

As one can see, these are quite different definitions which are worth to be analysed more precisely. Scheler (1977: 82), who gives an etymological categorization, states that all these definitions derive out of the Latin word ´baccalarius´, which meant ´labourer on an estate´.

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