A little later than planned, here's our blog about the origins of the word February.
The second month of the year in the Gregorian calendar February is the shortest month and also the only month that varies in length, being either 28 days long, or 29 days long in a leap year.
The word comes from the latin Februa, which was the name of a Roman festival of purification held on 15th February.
The month first appeared round about 750BC when the Romans decided to give the Winter some months. Originally their calendar consisted of 10 months, with Winter deemed to be a monthless period.
February took over from the old English solmanath which literally meant mud month. In the Northern hemisphere February has long been associated with metling snow, rain and mud and was sometimes referred to as February fill-dyke.
The Finnish have a much more romantic word for February - helmikuu - which means month of the pearl. This is because as snow melts and then refreezes it creates pearls of ice on tree branches. The Japanese language sticks to its numbering theme with February being ni-gatsu (which means 2nd month). In Polish February is Lutego and in Tagalog it is Pebero.
Sources:
Shorter Oxford Dictionary (2 volumes) 6th edition, 2007
Chambers Dictionary of Etymology, 2010
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February
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