Editorial houses enforce specific rules for shortening February. The standard abbreviation across American English publishing is Feb., retaining the terminal period.
Major style systems treat abbreviations differently:
- The Associated Press (AP) Stylebook: Abbreviate the month when accompanied by a specific date (Feb. 14). Spell it out when referencing the month alone or pairing it solely with a year (February 2026). Never abbreviate March, April, May, June, or July under AP guidelines.
- The Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS): Spell out the month in formal prose regardless of accompanying dates. Reserve abbreviations like Feb. for footnotes, citations, and dense tabular data.
- British Standards (Oxford / Modern Humanities): Omit the terminal period altogether, rendering the short form simply as 14 Feb 2026.
To avoid punctuation errors in American English, remember the trailing comma. When writing a month, day, and year within a running sentence, set off the year with commas on both sides: "The agreement reached on February 12, 2026, altered the entire timeline." Omit the comma only when providing the month and year alone: "The merger closed in February 2026 without regulatory pushback."
