An archaic or rare word, possibly referring to a type of herb, plant, or botanical specimen, though its exact meaning is obscure in modern usage.
The etymology is uncertain; it may derive from Old English or medieval botanical terminology. The word's rarity suggests it may be a regional dialect term or an obsolete technical term from herbalism.
Sometimes the oldest, rarest words are hardest to trace because they referred to hyper-local plants or practices that only one village knew about—'arbith' might be the ghost of knowledge we've simply forgotten!
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