Februum

The word February comes down to us from a Latin word for a purification or a means of such. Apparently the Latin spelling was reintroduced in English in the 14th century, alongside the Hundred Years War with France, driving out the French spelling that had been standard until then. 

But what is a febrvvm? Apparently it could be almost anything. 

According to Ovid’s poem Fasti, pretty much anything that people used to purify something else was known as februa (the plural form of februum). Houses were purified with “roasted grain and salt,” land was purified with strips of animal hide, priests wore crowns made of leaves from trees, and so on.

This is the date of the purification festival Lupercalia, which was the racy precursor to St. Valentine’s Day in the same way that the Saturnalia was the racy precursor to Christmas.