February (pronunciation) is the second month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars. It is the shortest month and the only month with fewer than 30 days. The month has 29 days in leap years, when the year number is divisible by four (except for years that are divisible by 100 and not by 400 in the Gregorian calendar). In common years the month has 28 days.

History

Historical names for February include the Anglo-Saxon terms Solmonath (mud month) and Kale-monath (named for cabbage) as well as Charlemagne's designation Hornung. In Finnish, the month is called helmikuu, meaning "month of the pearl"; when snow melts on tree branches, it forms droplets, and as these freeze again, they are like pearls of ice.

Pronunciation

Many people pronounce the 'ru' of "February" as IPAEng: juː you rather than /ruː/ roo, as if it were spelled "Febuary". This comes about by analogy with "January" (which ends in "-uary" but not "-ruary"); as well as by a dissimilation effect whereby having two "r"s close to each other causes one to change for ease of pronunciation. The Scots language names for the month are Feberwary and Februar, the latter usually pronounced with a long "ay" vowel in the first syllable.

Patterns

February starts on the same day of the week as both March and November in common years, and August in leap years.

Having only 28 days in common years, it is the only month of the year that can pass without a single full moon. It is also the only month of the calendar that once every six years and twice every 11 years, will have only four full 7-day weeks. Where the first day of the month starts on a Sunday and the last day ends on a Saturday, this was observed in 2009 and can be traced back 11 years to 1998, another 11 years back to 1987, and 6 years back to 1981; and so on twice 11 years consecutively and once six years either forward into the future or back into the past, unless the pattern is broken by a skipped leap year, but no leap year has been skipped since 1900 and no others will be skipped until 2100. A year of this kind would be a common year starting on Thursday. It cannot happen in a leap year. 2004, which was a leap year, would have observed this format had it been a common year,

Events in February

• Groundhog Day: February 2 United States and Canada
• National Foundation Day in Japan: February 11
• Valentine's Day: February 14
• Flag Day of Canada: February 15
• Presidents Day (United States, third Monday)
• Dominican Republic Independence: February 27
• Liberation Day (Kuwait) February 26
• Leap Day: February 29 (Every 4 years, with some exceptions)
• Black History Month (Canada and United States)