arktos

Arktos is the transliteration of the Ancient Greek word ἄρκτος, meaning "bear." The root has given rise to several terms in English and other languages, most notably Arctic and arktikos, which denote the northern regions and phenomena associated with bears in the northern sky.

The name relation to the north stems from the constellation Ursa Major (the Great Bear) and Ursa Minor (the Little Bear), which have long served as celestial markers for travelers and observers in the northern hemisphere. The adjective arktikos, meaning "of the bear" or "northern," led to the modern term Arctic, used to describe the polar region and related climatic and ecological conditions.

In biology, arktos appears in species epithets derived from the Greek root. For example, Ursus arctos is the brown bear, with arctos indicating the animal itself in binomial nomenclature.

In contemporary usage, arktos primarily functions as a linguistic root in academic terms and in proper names that evoke northern or bear-related imagery. It does not designate a single, widely recognized entity by itself, but it underpins related terms, toponyms, and organizational names that draw on the ancient Greek association with bears and the north.