Note x — Chapter IX · [a] (continued 3)
Reading edition
The word bachelor has been sometimes derived from bas chevalier; in opposition to banneret. But this cannot be right. We do not find any authority for the expression bas chevalier, nor any equivalent in Latin, baccalaureus certainly not suggesting that sense; and it is strange that the corruption should obliterate every trace of the original term. Bachelor is a very old word, and is used in early French poetry for a young man, as bachelette is for a girl. So also in Chaucer:
"A yonge Squire, A lover, and a lusty bachelor."