archive
Americannoun
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Usually archives. documents or records relating to the activities, business dealings, etc., of a person, family, corporation, association, community, or nation.
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archives, a place where public records or other historical documents are kept.
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any extensive record or collection of data.
The encyclopedia is an archive of world history. The experience was sealed in the archive of her memory.
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Digital Technology.
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a long-term storage device, as a disk or magnetic tape, or a computer directory or folder that contains copies of files for backup or future reference.
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a collection of digital data stored in this way.
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a computer file containing one or more compressed files.
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a collection of information permanently stored on the internet.
The magazine has its entire archive online, from 1923 to the present.
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verb (used with object)
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to place or store in an archive.
to vote on archiving the city's historic documents.
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Digital Technology. to compress (computer files) and store them in a single file.
noun
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a collection of records of or about an institution, family, etc
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a place where such records are kept
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computing data transferred to a tape or disk for long-term storage rather than frequent use
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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archivesimple
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archivessimple
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have archivedperfect
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has archivedperfect
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am archivingprogressive
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are archivingprogressive
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is archivingprogressive
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have been archivingperfect progressive
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has been archivingperfect progressive
Past
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archivedsimple
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had archivedperfect
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was archivingprogressive
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were archivingprogressive
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had been archivingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of archive
First recorded in 1595–1605; originally, as plural, from French archives, from the Late Latin plural noun archīva, archīa “public records,” from Greek archeîa “public records,” plural of archeîon “town hall, public office,” equivalent to archḗ “magistracy, office” + -eion suffix of location
Explanation
An archive is a collection of older things — documents, books, movies, or something else — that's meant to preserve them. Archives tell us about history. An archive involves old stuff — specifically, a collection of old stuff, often put together by a librarian. Newspaper archives collect old newspapers, usually all copies of a paper from a certain date onward. There are movie and music archives. Most museums have many types of archives within them. And it's always a good idea to keep an archive of important files on your computer. When you put something in an archive, you're archiving it.
Vocabulary lists containing archive
Play by the Rules: Arch
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The View from Saturday
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arch
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
In contrast, parts of the moon have remained largely unchanged for billions of years, making them an ideal archive of early solar system history.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 13, 2026
All we’re really talking about, to be honest, is the IP, the access to the DNS server for Infowars.com, and some possible footage and archive stuff.
From Slate ● Jul. 12, 2026
The exhibition coincides with Oyer’s fifth portrait book release, which features selections from his extensive archive.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 8, 2026
The archive brings together surveys conducted by Belgian geologists as well as files from mining companies that operated in the vast African country before independence in 1960.
From Barron's ● Jul. 3, 2026
It appeared to contain an archive of the Oology Division’s status reports, intended for the Sixers’ top brass.
From "Ready Player One: A Novel" by Ernest Cline
There’s nothing about it in New York City’s municipal archives or the stacks of the Queens Historical Society.
From Slate ● Jul. 7, 2026
During a 2019-20 artist residency with New York City’s Department of Records and Information Services, Weist mined municipal archives for records revealing how city government had defined, supported and monitored past artists.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 7, 2026
"The Congolese have identified several priority exploration zones -- they are not starting from scratch. We are providing archives to confirm or refine their knowledge," Kervyn said.
From Barron's ● Jul. 3, 2026
At first, Tremaine and his collaborators didn’t know this installment would be their farewell, but ending the journey just “felt right” as they started digging into their archives.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 29, 2026
The stacks of Nahuatl manuscripts in Mexican archives depict the tlamatinime meeting to exchange ideas and gossip, as did the Vienna Circle and the French philosophes and the Taisho-period Kyoto school.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
ZTF data are processed and archived by IPAC, an astronomy center at Caltech.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 24, 2026
AFP has archived these files and tracked evolutions in these categories from the very first days of the conflict.
From Barron's ● Feb. 24, 2026
In archived Reddit posts from 2023, when Van Rootselaar was 15, she posted to a “r/trans” forum that she found transitioning “super intimidating,” but that she intended to see a gender transition specialist.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 14, 2026
The basement at St Mark's The National Bowel Hospital has a unique collection of tens of thousands of archived cancer samples.
From BBC ● Jan. 7, 2026
Though it had been only half a year, the Great Library had become memory, as though his mind had sorted his seven years there and archived them into a more distant past.
From "Strange the Dreamer" by Laini Taylor
Sanborn has acknowledged his error in archiving the crucial information -- but he downplayed the discovery.
From Barron's ● Nov. 19, 2025
Through the Electronic Babylonian Library Platform, Jiménez and his team are digitally archiving all known cuneiform fragments from around the world.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 11, 2025
Dr Mark Farrell, who is the Panel's expert member for archiving, explained: "It will essentially be a one-stop shop, a central location for all of the relevant records that relate to the truth recovery process."
From BBC ● Aug. 30, 2025
Her hobby involves not only investigative work but also archiving.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 13, 2025
The Pit-Manager Archive MIT, with Jonathan Kamens, has graciously dedicated a machine to the archiving and storage of the various periodic postings that are peppered throughout the various Usenet groups.
From Zen and the Art of the Internet by Kehoe, Brendan P.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
