4 Looking at the original spelling in Shakespeare's sonnets, he was somewhat inconsistent. But he never used an accent, and he generally used belov'd for the two-syllable pronunciation (which the OP spells beloved ) and beloved for the three-syllable pronunciation (which the OP spells belovèd). The formulaic expression dearly departed seems to have emerged in the mid 19th century, and dear departed in the early 18th century (per a lazy ngram search). I suspect some obituary column editor felt an adverb was needed to modify departed and that (bogus) edit "stuck". Possibly influenced by dearly beloved . Personally, I've used both versions. Nevertheless: Belated birthday is nonsense, since the anniversary is the anniversary, and cannot be postponed even if the celebrations are. Belated happy birthday, strictly, is also nonsense because the birthday has already gone and may or may not have been happy. Therefore I would suggest something along the lines of: Belated birthday wishes (as suggested in another answer) Hope you had a Happy Birthday. Sorry I missed it / Sorry I'm late. However, you find ' beloved ' more frequently used than 'loved' when you are using it as an adjective. So, to answer this, if you are using the word as an adjective, prefer which is more common and understandable - beloved .
