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archives, a place where public records or other historical documents are kept.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:
When a gay American man arrives to archive her art collection, he’s pulled along by a romance and a deeper mystery at the villa.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 26, 2026
Meta joined the pledge in 2016 according to a Wayback Machine archive of RE100's website.
From Barron's ● Jul. 25, 2026
Since 2016, they’ve been digitizing Saar’s expansive archive, including correspondence, sketches, playbills, documents and ephemera.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 15, 2026
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
She was talking about the archive reference I’d written in my hand.
From "Code Name Verity" by Elizabeth Wein
The burgeoning young composer organized Bernstein’s music archives, sat in on recording sessions and audited his senior-level classes for three years while studying at the Thornton School of Music at USC.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 28, 2026
From the archives: Netflix officially ends DVD rentals.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 18, 2026
Ms. Crabapple spent years in the Bund’s archives and learned to read Yiddish.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 14, 2026
ProPublica analyzed over two decades of Supreme Court rulings, which cover all of the years under Chief Justice John Roberts and go as far back as the online archives allow.
From Salon ● Jul. 3, 2026
For a while now she had been examining the archives documenting the lives of French slave masters and their commerce in West Africa.
From "Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracy Kidder and Michael French
Researchers believe this method could be applied to other archived seafood, such as canned sardines, offering a new way to explore historical ecosystems.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 1, 2026
A State Department spokesperson said all bilateral relations fact sheets were archived and removed because most hadn’t been updated in more than two years, leaving them potentially outdated or inaccurate.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 26, 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
It was also possible to rewind livestreams from the start, and download archived clips.
From BBC ● Feb. 5, 2026
I explained how I’d seen Jesse install operating systems, play online games from chess to Quake, use astonishing ingenuity to gather archived information off the Web.
From "Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet Out of Idaho" by Jon Katz
That sparked an outpouring of grief on social media, with users archiving chat histories and sharing last conversations.
From Barron's ● Jul. 15, 2026
The promotion is part of the brand’s partnership with StoryCorps, an independent nonprofit focused on archiving the stories of everyday people.
From Salon ● Apr. 27, 2026
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
Meanwhile, the Instagram page, Museum of Kashmir, is taking a broader approach to archiving.
From BBC ● Sep. 12, 2025
By archiving the daily output, the translator helps in building an extensive translation memory and in solving a number of translation issues.
From The Internet and Languages [around the year 2000] by Lebert, Marie
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.
