Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(Aus./US) to live by oneself or soley with the company of other men; usu. refers to men but occas. also of a woman living by herself (cf. bach up v.).

1870		Republican Daily Journal (Lawrence, KS) 29 Jan. n.p.: They ‘bach’ [DA].
1882		W.A. Baillie-Grohman Camps in the Rockies 382: It was a remote little settlement [....] tenanted by burly pistol-girt miners, three or four ‘baching’ (bacheloring) in every hut.
1888		Century mag. (N.Y.) Jan. 412/2: He had always ‘bached it’ (lived as a bachelor) [DA].
1890		Semi-wkly Tribune (Gt Falls, MT) 10 Dec. 4/2: There is a comofrtable building used as a bunk house [...] You may [...] provide a dug out or ‘batch’ in a tent if you please.
1893		H. Lawson ‘“Dossing Out” and “Camping”’ in Roderick (1972) 164: They batched in the office, and did their cooking over a gas lamp.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 20 Jan. 14/1: Mrs. Boundary-Rider caught me one day eating bread and butter and honey, and made such a fuss that it finished me: I started to ‘batch’ in the school.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 2 June 31/1: Belle had just locked the door of her little two-roomed house, [...] Music-teaching in a bush township doesn’t pay too well, and she ‘batched’ for economy’s sake. Besides, batching has its advantages.
1905		L. Pound ‘Dialect Speech in Nebraska’ in DN III:i 60: bach, v. Live as a bachelor. ‘Two of us were batching.’.
1911		E.S. Sorenson Christmas in the Bush in Life in the Aus. Backblocks 296: These are men camped in lonely parts, batching at station out-camps or boundary-riders’ huts. Some of them have been so long alone.
1912		R.W. Brown ‘Word-List From Western Indiana’ in DN III:viii 570: bach, v. To live wholly without the assistance of a woman. ‘My wife and daughter are going away for two months, so I’ll have to bach, I guess.’.
1914		Sport (Adelaide) 3 July 4/3: Aug. N. [...] is full up of baching .
c.1920		H. Lawson ‘Previous and S’Samuel’ in Roderick (1972) 889: I learnt something of it [i.e. housekeeping] [...] batchin’ in stables where I had a job after I’d chucked going crook.
1925		K. Mullen ‘Westernisms’ in AS I:3 150: Printed on a sign, ‘Cabins for Baching,’ it is a queer-looking word which the tenderfoot has to read twice to comprehend.
1926		Weston & Lee [perf. Bromley Carter] ‘Bachelor Ben’ 🎵 I’m a bachelor still and I always shall batch.
1927		C.M. Russell Trails Plowed Under 63: Me and Murphy’s batchin’ together.
1927		(con. 1910s) S. Lewis Elmer Gantry 270: The Doc lived alone, ‘baching it’ in a little yellow cottage.
1934		Z.N. Hurston Jonah’s Gourd Vine (1995) 155: Us been here batchin’ tuhgether and gittin’ ’long fine.
1940		B. Appel People Talk (1972) 279: The two boys are baching it in a cabin with an older man.
1944		N. Mailer letter 21 May in Selected Letters (2014) 18: And so you’re batching it again, and it must be a very curious sensation.
1947		S. Lewis Kingsblood Royal (2001) 133: He had bought a two-room shack where he ‘bached it’.
1950		J. Morrison Port of Call 32: Did I make it clear you’ll have to cook for yourself? Ever do any baching?
1952		A.W. Upfield New Shoe 191: The confusion seemingly inseparable from men baching for themselves.
1957		‘Weldon Hill’ Onionhead (1958) 98: When me and my old man were batching, I used to make my own [...] breakfast.
1969		(con. 1920s) B. Moore From Forest to Farm 66: He was concerned to see a young single man ‘batching’ as I did.
1971		N. Armfelt Catching Up 45: It’ll mean baching. Are you handy with the frying-pan?
1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 12/1: baching one or more usually male flatters or casual dwellers unused to housekeeping or living casually.
1996		J. Harrison Edge of the Crazies 295: ‘So he’s no good at baching it,’ said Jules. ‘If you want to call this baching it.’.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988].
2022		(con. late 19C) J. Nevins ‘Western frontier gay slang’ on Twitter 2 Mar. 🌐 ‘bach’ (pronounced ‘batch‘) = men keeping house without a woman--after ‘to bachelor it‘.