caelebs

Caelebs (classical Latin nominative caelebs, genitive caelibis) is a Latin adjective and substantive meaning "unmarried" or "bachelor." Used both to describe an unmarried person and, by extension, the state of being unmarried, the word appears in Roman literature and later ecclesiastical and medieval Latin texts. The related noun caelibatus denotes the condition of celibacy, and English words such as celibate and celibacy derive ultimately from this Latin root.

Grammatically, caelebs is notable for its irregular genitive form and for functioning as a substantive—allowing it to stand for "an unmarried man" or "an unmarried woman" depending on context. Its spelling has varied in older sources (often rendered coelebs), a form that persisted into Modern English usage.

In English-language culture, the variant Coelebs appears in the title of Hannah More’s early-19th-century novel Coelebs in Search of a Wife, which used the term to reflect contemporary debates about marriage, morals and social expectations. In modern usage, caelebs is rare outside classical scholarship, translations and literary history, where it is invoked to discuss Roman social categories, ecclesiastical law, or the linguistic history of words connected to celibacy.