Meaning

noun a nutritive starch obtained from the root of the arrowroot plant

noun white-flowered West Indian plant whose root yields arrowroot starch

noun canna grown especially for its edible rootstock from which arrowroot starch is obtained

originFrom Lokono aru-aru (literally “meal of meals”), influenced by arrow + root because the plant’s “roots” (more accurately rhizomes) are used on wounds from poison darts to absorb the poison.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0