New Zealand A small hut, especially for a man living alone.
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New Zealand Now specifically, a holiday home, typically a small, simple house of one or two rooms on the beach.
She stops the car by an ochre-coloured bach at the end of the beachline, by the shelter of a massive thicket of African thorn.1983, Keri Hulme, The Bone People, Penguin, published 1986, page 163:
Even before he began his chores he sunbathed naked against the east wall of the bach for half an hour.1984, Janet Frame, An Angel at my Table, Virago, published 2024, page 263:
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From 1931 until his death in 1982, Sargeson lived a monastic life in a bach at Takapuna, writing in the mornings and tending his garden and entertaining friends in the latter part of the day.2003, Michael King, The Penguin History of Aotearoa New Zealand, Penguin, published 2023, page 371:
Etymology Abbreviation of bachelor (or, in later senses, of bachelor pad).
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Australia, Canada, New Zealand, US, Archaic To live as a bachelor; (chiefly of a man) to live without women, and do one's own cooking, housekeeping etc.
I hurried home to the tent—I was batching with a carpenter.1900, Henry Lawson, Over the Sliprails: