Valentine

How to spell valentine

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce valentine

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does valentine mean?

1. nounA card, note, or token of affection sent to someone on Valentine's Day.
2. nounA person chosen or addressed as one's sweetheart, especially on Valentine's Day.

Valentine in a sentence

• She signed the valentine without revealing her name.

• He asked her to be his valentine over a quiet dinner.

• He slipped a handmade valentine into her bag before work.

• Every February she remembered her first valentine from childhood.

Where does valentine come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word descends from the Latin personal name Valentinus, which was built on the verb valere, meaning 'to be strong' or 'to be healthy' (the same root that gives us 'valid' and 'value'). Several early Christian saints bore the name Valentine, and one of them became associated with a mid-February feast day. By the time the word reached Middle English through Old French, it was being attached to the custom of choosing a sweetheart around that date, a tradition the poet Geoffrey Chaucer helped popularise in the late 1300s. From the person and the feast, the meaning broadened to cover both the chosen sweetheart and, later, the written card or token sent to that person. The spelling keeps the original Latin name almost intact, with the unstressed middle vowel ('val-EN-tine') being the part most likely to trip a writer up.

How the word is built

• valentin- (from the personal name Valentinus, ultimately valere 'to be strong')
• -e