Definition of "batchelor"

[…] could Richard have anticipated that his elder brother, Sir Everard, taking to heart an early disappointment, would have remained a batchelor at seventy-two.

1814 July 7, [Walter Scott], chapter II, in Waverley; or, ’Tis Sixty Years Since. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown