celibate
/ˈsɛləbət/
celibate adjective: not married.
Adjective
celibate (not comparable)
- Not married.
- Abstaining from sexual relations and pleasures.
- Members of religious communities sometimes take vows to remain celibate.
- Juanita went celibate for a while and then started going out with Da5id and eventually got married to him.1992, Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash, page 57
Noun (1)
celibate (uncountable)
- One who is not married, especially one who has taken a religious vow not to get married, usually because of being a member of a religious community.
- Even during the ages that priestly marriage was permitted, celibates obtained a higher reputation for sanctity and virtue than married priests, who infinitely more than celibates were believed subject to infestation by demons.1893, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Woman, Church and State: A Historical Account of the Status of Woman Through the Christian Ages: with Reminiscences of the Matriarchate
Verb
celibate (third-person singular simple present celibates, present participle celibating, simple past and past participle celibated)
- To practice celibacy.
- However, be that as it may, Stason celebrated with the boys while Hessel celibated alone.1941, Michigan Raw Review, page 34
- These kids were winding up 45 years and 4 days of celebrating. Me? I'm winding up seven years of celibating looking for a patient virgin.1973, Stevens Indicator - Volumes 90-91, page 55
Noun (2)
celibate (uncountable)
- A celibate state; celibacy.
- He […] preferreth holy Cœlibate before the eſtate of Marriage, […]1678, Jeremy Taylor, “The History of the Life and Death of the Holy Jesus: […]. The Third Part.”, in Antiquitates Christianæ: Or, the History of the Life and Death of the Holy Jesus: […], London: […]...
- And Mrs Gorman had had several admirers, both before and after Mr Gorman, and even during Mr Gorman, and Watt at least two well defined romances, in the course of his celibate.1953, Samuel Beckett, chapter II, in Watt, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Grove Press, published 1959, →OCLC, page 139
- Synonyms:
- cel
celibate meaning in Bengali and Malayalam
celibate in Bengali
- বিবাহিত নয়, অবিবাহিত, একজন অবিবাহিত ব্যক্তি, ব্রহ্মচর্য পালন করা, ব্রহ্মচর্য, অবিবাহিত অবস্থা
celibate in Malayalam
- chaste, unmarried, single
- ബ്രഹ്മചാരിയായ, നെെഷ്ഠികബ്രഹ്മചാരിയായ, ബ്രഹ്മചര്യാവ്രതം അനുഷ്ഠിക്കുന്ന, വിവാഹം കഴിക്കാത്ത, വണ്ട, വിവാഹംചയ്യാത്ത
Examples of celibate in a sentence
- Like numeraries, assistant numeraries are celibates who live in Opus Dei centres.
- Joey, on the other hand, claims he is a mentalcel: involuntary celibate due to his mental challenges.
- Alana abbreviated "involuntarily celibate" to "invcel", until someone suggested that "incel" was easier to say.
Synonyms of celibate
Antonyms
Forms of celibate
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| alternative form (archaic) | cælibate |
| alternative form (archaic) | cœlibate |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | celibates |
| present participle | celibating |
| past participle | celibated |
| past | celibated |
Origin of celibate
Probably from the noun (“celibacy”) or from celibacy on the model of privacy/private, etc. Alternatively, from Latin caelebs (“single”) + -ate.
From Latin caelebs + -ate (noun-forming suffix)
From Latin caelebs + -ate (verb-forming suffix)
Words formed from celibate
Questions about celibate
- What does celibate mean?
- Celibate means not married.
- What is celibate in Bengali?
- Celibate in Bengali is বিবাহিত নয়, অবিবাহিত, একজন অবিবাহিত ব্যক্তি. See Celibate meaning in Bengali.
- What part of speech is celibate?
- Celibate can be an adjective, a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce celibate?
- Celibate is pronounced /ˈsɛləbət/.
Words near celibate in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: celibate (page history and authors); celibate (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); celibate (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-ca-celibate.oga.
Cite this entry: “celibate.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/celibate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.