early 14c., from Old English arwan, earlier earh "arrow," possibly borrowed from Old Norse ör (genitive örvar), from Proto-Germanic *arkhwo (cognates: Gothic arhwanza), from PIE root *arku- "bow and/or arrow," source of Latin arcus (see arc, n.). The ground sense would be "the thing belonging to the bow," perhaps a superstitious avoidance of the actual name.A rare word in Old English, where more common words for "arrow" were stræl (cognate with the word still common in Slavic, once prevalent in Germanic, too; meaning related to "flash, streak") and fla, flan, a North Germanic word, perhaps originally with the sense of "splinter." Stræl disappeared by 1200; fla lingered in Scottish until after 1500. Meaning "a mark like an arrow in cartography, etc." is from 1834.