archive
nounverbattested in dialogue
- United Kingdom//ˈɑːkaɪv//
- United Kingdom//-kɪv//
- United States//ˈɑɹˌkaɪv//
- Australia//ˈaːkɑɪv//
Chiefly in the form archives. A repository or other place for storing material (such as documents and records) no longer in current use, and usually having historical value.
noun
- 1
Chiefly in the form archives. A repository or other place for storing material (such as documents and records) no longer in current use, and usually having historical value.
The chiefeſt of the firſt Precinct vvas Lubeck, vvhere the Archives of their ancient Records, and their prime Chancery is ſtill, […]
The preſident accepted the Marquis's ſvvord—he ſtay'd a fevv minutes to ſee it depoſited in the archives of his houſe—and departed.
The court, however, was relieved from giving judgment on the case before it, by the death of the prince, which put a stop to its proceedings; the minutes of which were sealed up in a green coffer, and, by order of the king, deposited in the archive of Simancas by Christóval de Mora.
"I don't know how one could be interested in libraries and not archives," [Thomas] Lannon told me. They tell you "the stories behind things," he said, "the unpublished, the hard to find, the true story."
- 2
Chiefly in the form archives. The material so stored, considered as a whole.
His archive of Old High German texts is the most extensive in Britain.
[H]e took a particular Journy to Sparta, to ſearch the Archives of that famous Commonvvealth, to underſtand throughly the model of their ancient Government, their Legiſlators, their Kings, and their Ephori, […]
[…] I found [G. D.] busy as a moth over some rotten archive, rummaged out of some seldom-explored press, in a nook at Oriel.
- 3
Chiefly in the form archives. The material so stored, considered as a whole. A natural deposit of material, regarded as a record of environmental changes over time.
peat archive soil archive
Even these 100,000-year cycles seem to be subject to still longer fluctuations, but here the historical archive begins to be less reliable. The ice archive, in any case, can no longer help us (ice clearly does not preserve prehistorical temperatures directly, but rather atmospheric isotope signals, which are just as dependable).
- 4
figurativeA collection, a repository.
[T]heſe curious meddlers in collecting and gathering together on all ſides the errours, imperfections, defaults, and ſolæciſmes (as I may ſo ſay) not of verſes or Poemes, but of other mens lives, make of their memorie a moſt unpleaſant Archive or Regiſter, and uncivile Record, vvhich they ever carie about them.
[S]o expert was he, and a living archive in that business: however, his post seems to have vanished with himself.
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂er-der.? Proto-Indo-European *h₂ergʰ-der.? Ancient Greek ἄρχω (árkhō) Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Hellenic *-ā́ Ancient Greek -ᾱ (-ā) Ancient Greek -η (-ē) Ancient Greek ᾰ̓ρχή (ărkhḗ) Ancient Greek *ἀρχεῖος (*arkheîos) Ancient Greek ἀρχεῖον (arkheîon)bor. Latin archīvumbor. French archives French archivebor. English archive The noun is borrowed from French archive, archif, from Late Latin archīvum, archīum (“archive; room containing an archive; public record office”), from Ancient Greek ἀρχεῖον (arkheîon, “office of a magistrate; public building or office; town hall; (in the plural) archives; public records”), a noun use of the neuter form of *ἀρχεῖος (*arkheîos, “relating to an office”), from ᾰ̓ρχή (ărkhḗ, “beginning, origin; authority, sovereignty”) (from ἄρχω (árkhō, “to begin; to govern, rule”); further etymology uncertain, possibly from Proto-Indo-European *h₂er- (“to fit; to fix; to put together”), or *h₂ergʰ- (“to begin; to command; to rule”)) + -ῐος (-ĭos, suffix meaning ‘of or relating to’ forming adjectives). The verb is derived from the noun.
verb
- 1
To place or store (something, such as a document or record) in an archive (noun sense 1.1).
I was planning on archiving the documents from 2001.
The library archives some of its older books.
- 2
To transfer (less used or obsolete data, files, etc.) to a storage medium for long-term storage.
Forms
- plural
- archives
- past tense
- archived
- past participle
- archived
- present participle
- archiving
- third person singular
- archives
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