Dictionaries of the Scots Language
Dictionars o the Scots Leid

Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

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First published 1976 (SND Vol. X).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

BACHELOR, n. Sc. usages: 1. A third year student at the Universities of St Andrews and Glasgow, one about to enter the fourth year in which he graduated to the degree of M.A. Hist., the term Tertian later being substituted. Hence semi-bachelor, see 1946 quot.Gsw. c.1705 J. Houston Memoirs (1753) 22:
The fourth Year they taught Metaphysics, or the Batchelor Class, and Ethics. Sc. 1807 J. Grierson Delineations of St Andrews (1838) 168:
Those [students] of the third year, who commonly attend most of the last mentioned classes again, and the Moral Philosophy, are called Batchelors. Sc. 1946 R. G. Cant Univ. St Andrews 17:
By his third year the student had normally attained to the dignity of bachelor, and in the intermediate stage before this, he tended to be referred to as a semi-bachelor or semi. . . . The change from bachelor to tertian—a natural consequence of the disuse of the bachelor's degree after the Reformation does not seem to have been made here until the nineteenth century.

2. As in Eng. Combs. (1) bachelor's buttons, the sweet pan-drops, mint imperials (Rs. 1910; Ags., Per., Ayr. 1975). (2) bachelor's jam, carraway seeds (see quot.).(2) e.Lth. 1952 People's Friend (19 April):
If no one was looking it was grand to dip bread and butter in the carvie dish. They stuck thick and fast and what a delicious piece it was. I have often heard it called Bachelors' Jam.