Etymology
Cp. OIcel
ǫr (st. fem.; gen.
ǫrvar) ‘arrow’, OE
earh ‘arrow’, and late OE, ME
arwe (PDE
arrow). The root
*arx- (usually held to be related to Lat
arcus ‘bow’) is known only in Scandinavian languages, where it is restricted to Far.
ørv and OSw
arf alongside the Icel word, in English and, in an extended form, in Go
arhvazna (derived from an earlier
es-stem; see
GED s.v.). The Norse words are
wō-stems, but OE
earh is neut. (and shows the expected development of
*arxwa- in OE). OE
arwe, however, could represent a wk.
wōn-stem in which loss of /x/ and persistence of /w/ would regularly derive from
*arxwōn. The expected OE
*earwe is not attested, however a development
>
arwe can be explained by Hogg’s ‘combinative breaking’ (Hogg §5.29 n.4, Campbell §144 n.1, and see also SPS), whereby /æ/ retracts to /ɑ/ rather than breaking before /r/ + a labial. The formal evidence for loan from ON is therefore uncompelling and the case rests more tenuously on the late attestation of OE
arwe (11c.).
PGmc Ancestor
*arx-
Proposed ON Etymon (OIcel representative)
ǫr 'arrow'
(ONP ǫr (sb.))
Other Scandinavian Reflexes
Far ørv, Icel ör, OSw arf
OE Cognate
cp. earh ‘arrow’
Phonological and morphological markers
[lack of breaking of OE root vowel]
(possibly diagnostic)
(may not be applicable)
Summary category
CC1