School, university, training

The vocabulary of a school system, and at the top of it le baccalauréat — a word that English also has, in a place three years further on. It begins with bacca lauri, the laurel berry: the crown a scholar was given. Medieval Latin made baccalaureus out of it for the lowest degree a university granted, and the word then went two ways. French moved it down to the end of school, where it has sat since 1808, and the holder is un bachelier. English left it where it was, and « a bachelor » is the first degree — plus, by a much older detour through the young man not yet established, an unmarried one. So « bachelor » and bachelier are the same word and never the same qualification, and the French first degree is not le bachelier at all but la licence. The berry is still visible in only one of them.