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A bachelor听is an unmarried man. A confirmed bachelor is one who intends to remain that way forever鈥攈e’s settled on it, he’s resolute, he’s confirmed.

The phrase听confirmed bachelor听became popular during the Victorian era, when it was used primarily to describe men who disliked or avoided women. The Christian Examiner, for instance,听used the phrase in 1843 for a “solitary, melancholic, and monkish man.”

Another early use of the phrase was in an 1863 court trial where a man was accused of pursuing another man’s fianc茅e. The defendant styled himself a听confirmed bachelor, claiming he had no interest in women, and that his “wife” was the armchair in the men’s club he was a member of.

I've decided to be like Clooney or Charlie Harper and just be a confirmed bachelor forever. No heartache, and always free to pass gas.

— Jeff Tillbrook (@tillbrook)

By the end of the 19th century, a confirmed bachelor began to refer to men who didn’t want to be “trapped” by marriage to a woman. An 1892 article in the British magazine Pick-Me-Up听humorously noted that a confirmed bachelor‘s听“idea of ever getting married is quite too absurd for anything.”

By the mid-20th century,听confirmed bachelor听was being used as a euphemism for “gay man.” American and British newspaper obituaries at this time鈥攚hen men largely remained closeted听due to stigmas against homosexuality鈥搖sed language like never married听or听confirmed bachelor instead of terms such as “homosexual.”

Rereading Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil. As naive kid, didn't realize stigma & meaning of "confirmed bachelor"

— inbetweencurves (@inbetweencurves)

This euphemism persisted into the late 20th-century, early 21st centuries even with the greater visibility and acceptance of LGBTQ people and social issues.听Writing for The Independent in 1994, Helen Fielding lamented the use of the word听bachelor, both as a euphemism for homosexuality and for shaming people’s decision not to marry.

In a 2011 article for the magazine听Out, editor Aaron Hicklin explained that terms like听confirmed bachelor imply that homosexuality is shameful鈥攚hy else conceal it?

One of the biggest challenges when talking about LGBT+ history is the lack of it. LGBT+ people have been systematically removed from the historical record, or their otherness whitewashed away in phrases like "confirmed bachelor" and "just friends"

— LGBT+ Physics (@LGBT_Physics)

The phrase听confirmed bachelor was notably used in the 2017 film听The Phantom Thread, where famed dressmaker Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis) describes himself as a confirmed bachelor, married only to his art (though also complicating his sexuality).