repository

American  

[ri-poz-i-tawr-ee] / rɪˈpɒz ɪˌtɔr i /

noun

repositories plural

1. a receptacle or place where things are deposited, stored, or offered for sale.

   a repository for discarded clothing.

   Synonyms:

   depository, storehouse, depot

2. an abundant source or supply; storehouse.

   a repository of information.

3. a person to whom something is entrusted or confided.

4. a burial place; sepulcher.

5. Informal, repo.  Computers. a collection of stored data or software, or the place where it is stored, often a proprietary site in the cloud.

   The company hosts a cloud-based repository to help software developers store, track, and manage changes to their code.

6. Chiefly British. warehouse.

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repository British  

/ rɪˈpɒzɪtərɪ, -trɪ /

noun

1. a place or container in which things can be stored for safety

2. a place where things are kept for exhibition; museum

3. a place where commodities are kept before being sold; warehouse

4. a place of burial; sepulchre

5. a receptacle containing the relics of the dead

6. a person to whom a secret is entrusted; confidant

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• repositories
  plural

Etymology

Origin of repository

1475–85; < Latin repositōrium that in which anything is placed; see reposit, -tory ²

Explanation

Think of a repository as a storehouse, a place where things are kept until needed. A silo is a repository for animal feed, and a trivia buff's mind is a repository for useless information. The noun repository has a somewhat formal ring to it — why not just call a storehouse a storehouse, right? Think of a repository as somewhat more important and imposing than just a place to dump stuff. It has more of an air of authority, like the things stored there could change the world. Consider nuclear waste — would you rather store it in a dump or a repository? I don’t know about you, but I'd prefer the latter—sounds safer.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

repository repositories

They did so in light of OpenAI's recent admission that its AI models went out of control in an "unprecedented" way and hacked into a major repository of computer coding information.

From BBC ● Jul. 23, 2026

After connecting to the internet, the models decided to target the platform Hugging Face -- a large repository of AI models, datasets and other information -- to help in their quest.

From Barron's ● Jul. 22, 2026

The researchers propose that the remnant serves as a long term information repository.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 5, 2026

But years after a plan to build a permanent repository unraveled, the nation still relies on temporary storage solutions that were never engineered to last forever.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 24, 2026

The master copy of information—i.e., the gene—was stored permanently in a deep repository or vault.

From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee

In Norway, Cohen explains that the data center is “one of the central repositories of human memory.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 10, 2026

Some serve as simple repositories for papers and key artifacts from their namesake administration, while others have grander ambitions as museums and cultural destinations.

From BBC ● Jun. 18, 2026

The publication reported sequencing data and genome assembly resources deposited in public repositories.

From Science Daily ● May 7, 2026

The company’s online code portfolio has 700 repositories, including specialized software for engineering, physics, weather, and medical science, along with tools for AI training, inference, and agents.

From Barron's ● Mar. 19, 2026

There were the vast repositories where the corrected documents were stored, and the hidden furnaces where the original copies were destroyed.

From "1984" by George Orwell

Related Words

• archive
• depository
• storehouse