*erbaz

Possibly from an Indo-European animal-name derivative *er-bʰ-o-s / *eri-bʰ-o-s, from the root/base *er- perhaps denoting ‘agitation, fierceness’ with the animal-name formant *-bʰo-also seen or proposed in formations such as Proto-Germanic *lambaz (‘lamb’) and Ancient Greek ἔριφος (érĭphos) (érĭphos, ‘kid, young goat’), which could be a direct cognate (Brugmann 1970). This would allow a loose comparison with Lithuanian er̃nis ‘wolverine’, an n-derivative of the same root (Young 2001). Sometimes reconstructed as **erbô, but an a-stem is clearly attested in the Hogganvik runestone.