*artǭ

Uncertain; probably a European substrate bird name rather than a securely inherited Proto-Indo-European formation. The Germanic evidence does not permit a precise species reconstruction: Old English earte contrasts with Old Norse arta (Kroonen 2013: 36; Matasović 2020: 339). Compare Ancient Greek ἐρῳδιός (erōidiós), with variants ἐρῳδιός (erōidiós), ἀρῳδιός (arōidiós), and ῥῳδιός (rhōidiós), and Latin ardea; the irregular variation within Greek and between the languages has been taken to point to a pre-Greek or wider European substrate word. (Beekes 2010: 468–69; Pronk 2019: 154–55; Šorgo 2020: 433–34). Orel's proposed connection with *artijaną is possible within Germanic but semantically weak and remains unsubstantiated (Orel 2003: s.v. *artōn).