Happy Saint Valentine’s Day,
It’s a grey and dreary 14th of February here in Ireland. You would think the early Christian martyr Saint Valentine would have arranged for better weather considering we’ve given his old bones a resting place, a gift from Pope Gregory XVI in 1836.
I found this week’s word, aubade, on Pinterest which I joined last week. I finally have a spot to save all those craft, garden and scout project ideas I gather around the Web, huzzah! I’ll be using it for book and blog research as well, of course. Are any of you on it? I’m looking for boards to follow. You’ll find me as GraceTierneyIrl.
An aubade is a song or poem greeting the dawn, or sometimes a tale of lovers parting at dawn. It entered the English lexicon in the 1600s with the meaning of dawn serenade. It came from French but has Spanish and Latin roots in auba (dawn) and alba/albus (white). I notice Albus Dumbledore was well-named in that regard. The reference to alba confused me as I knew it was an old name for Scotland and had assumed it was Latin, but no, it’s a Scottish Gaelic word dating back to 900, long before aubades were sung to highland lassies.
Ironically serenade, a song at night, typically sung to one’s lover through their window, entered English earlier than the aubade but again it came via French, those romantic old devils. In arrived there from Italian with both sera (evening) and sereno (calm and open air) contributing to the word.
If you feel inclined to sing an aubade or serenade to your beloved today, I’ll add one word of warning – find out first if they’re a night owl or early bird, unless you want something thrown at your head.
Until next time, happy reading, writing, singing, and wordfooling,
Grace (@Wordfoolery)
Wordfoolery 