February: Fowler (1926) doesn't give a pronunciation, which suggests there was no question mark over it then. Old OED (using its own phonetic symbols which could sometimes impede ready understanding) gives only one pronunciation, with unstressed -ua-, but it's not clear to me whether they mean it one diphthong or two syllables, the second a neutral vowel. Modern Chambers (which has a Scottish influence) gives it as four syllables, with unstressed short -oo-a-.
I was trying to work out my own pronunciation the other day. I think Febr-a-ri with the natural tendency to slur it to Feb-ri (as it has a neutral vowel before a continuant).
I can't tell from this whether a generation earlier than OED and Fowler would have regularly said it with the full -air- vowel.
Compare a word in a similar but not identical situation: military. OED and Chambers make it four syllables, without alternative, the -a- being neutral; and Fowler doesn't mention it or have anything about the -tary ending, which suggests the modern British pronunciation as three syllables is recent. But in the US it's given the full -air- vowel, isn't it? So (if so) is this lengthening a new development in the US, or is it the original pronunciation everywhere, and in Britain -air- dropped to -a- then has now disappeared?
Going back several hundred years I think it would have been a long vowel pronounced in full.
