valentine
/ˈvaləntʌɪn
/noun
1A card sent, often anonymously, on St Valentine’s Day, 14 February, to a person one loves or is attracted to.Strange men followed her in the street, and anonymous valentines, love poems, and long-stemmed red roses in bouquets of a dozen found their way to her door....
- As she seems easily fooled, why not send yourself sheaves of valentines and other billets-doux?
- Sooner or later, we begin to understand that love is more than verses on valentines and romance in the movies.
1.1A person to whom one sends a valentine card or with whom one is romantically involved.You're all I need, my love, my valentine....
- Actually the trick with having a valentine is loving them every OTHER day of the year.
- A young man at a card store before Valentine's Day reading from a card he has picked: ‘… to my darling valentine, my one and only love.’
Origin
Late Middle English (denoting a person chosen (sometimes by lot) as a sweetheart or special friend): from Old French Valentin, from Latin Valentinus.
Valentine was the name of two early Italian martyrs, whose feasts were celebrated on St Valentine's Day, 14 February. It became associated with lovers in the Middle Ages, perhaps because of an old belief that birds mate on that day, perhaps a survival of the pagan fertility festival of Lupercalia celebrated on the 15th.