It's the word of the day for February 14th.

Today's word is Billy-Doo, also pronounced Bel-A-Doo, and spelled as two hyphenated words, as they would be in French.

B-I-L-L-E-T-Hifin-D-O-U-X.

Billy-D-U is a noun. A billy-do is a love letter. The words plural is spelled with an S at the end of

the first word of this compound and is sometimes pronounced the same as the singular, sometimes

pronounced as Bia d'os.

Here's the word used in a sentence from the New York Times by John McWhorter.

John Battiste creates splendid music. Those of us with kids likely experienced it lately on

his soundtrack to the Pixar hit, Soul. Batiste Movement 11, the composition of his that's nominated for a Grammy

in a classical category, is nearly two minutes of intense pensive joy, tinctured with darkness,

of the kind that people send to each other as a billy-do. When love is in the air, it's time to put

it down on paper. If you ever find yourself having trouble

thinking of Valentine's Day or anniversary gift ideas, how about sending your sweetie pie a billy-doo

that reminds them of your perfect meat-cute or invites them to see the latest rom-com? Wouldn't that be sweet?

In French, bie-dodu means sweet letter. English writers

first fell in love with the word during the 17th century and have been committed to using it as

a romantic alternative to love letter ever since. With your word of the day, I'm Peter Sokolowski.

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