'confirmed bachelor' VS 'celibate'

[Unregistered]

Is there a difference between 'confirmed bachelor' and 'celibate'?
If so, what is the difference?


Thanks in advance.

[The French]

Is there a difference between 'confirmed bachelor' and 'celibate'?
If so, what is the difference?


Thanks in advance.

Hello, the bachelor is a single man (he has never married), but he can have sexual activities, but celibate it's more religious or mean a man without sexual activities like the pope for example.

I hope it's more clear now, have a nice day.

[Raymott]

Is there a difference between 'confirmed bachelor' and 'celibate'?
If so, what is the difference?


Thanks in advance.

"Confirmed bachelor" was often used as a code to mean that a man was homosexual. These days, one would normally just say, "he's gay".
Urban Dictionary: confirmed bachelor

'Celibate' means abstaining from sex.

[Tdol]

Do you know what the code for, er, confirmed spinsters was?

[Barb_D]

I never knew that was supposed to be the code. I thought it was someone who enjoyed being single and not being "tied down." A bon vivant.

[bhaisahab]

I didn't know about that code either.

[BobK]

I did - perhaps because of having a Catholic family . Anything remotely connected with sex of any kind was spoken about in code.

The other difference, implied by Tdol, is that a confirmed bachelor has to be a man. A woman can be celibate.

b

[Tdol]

I'm the opposite; I came across the phrase in an article about the novelist EF Benson and had to ask my mother to explain the euphemism.

[Raymott]

I never knew that was supposed to be the code. I thought it was someone who enjoyed being single and not being "tied down." A bon vivant.

That might be a criteria for a good code. Not everbody knows for sure what it means. "Confirmed bachelor" could (or does) have a straightforward meaning as you suggest, as well as a code meaning. If there was only one meaning, "confirmed bachelor = homosexual", it wouldn't be much a code - you might as well just say "He's a homosexual".