• valentine •
Pronunciation: væ-lên-tain • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: 1. A loved one to whom a special card of love is sent on St. Valentine's Day, February 14. 2. The card itself or some other gift given on St. Valentine's Day to someone beloved.
Notes: The day celebrating love remains a proper noun, St. Valentine's Day or Saint Valentine's Day. The noun valentine, as defined above, has long since become a common noun. The verb valentine, once used to describe birds serenading a prospective mate, has fallen by the wayside. The same is true, alas, of the blend Valentide, made from valentine and tide, when it meant "time", in the spirit of Christmastide. So we are left to send valentines to our valentines on St. Valentine's Day.
In Play: 
A Valentine's Day present is shortened to just valentine these days: "That thoughtful guy, Amos, gave his wife a red lawnmower for a valentine." Since this word is so closely associated with St. Valentine's Day, the range of its possible uses is limited. Its association with the courtship of birds (See History), though, suggests we might revive the verb in figurative expressions like this one: "Fenwick seems to have valentined Maudy into marrying him."
Word History: February 14 was originally a Roman feast day celebrating the beginning of the mating season of birds (hence the association with love). Chaucer was still aware of this for, in Parliament of Foules (1381), he wrote: "For this was on seynt Volantynys day Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make" (For this was on Saint Valentine's Day when every bird comes there to choose his mate). The celebratory day somehow became associated with a saint named Valentine in the 3rd century, a priest and physician killed during the persecution of Christians by Claudius II. The connection between the two remains murky. (May everyone reading this be loved by someone special today.)
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