1
: a place in which public records or historical materials (such as documents) are preserved
an archive of historical manuscripts
a film archive
also
: the material preserved
—often used in plural
reading through the archives
2
: a repository or collection especially of information
archived; archiving
: to file or collect in or as if in an archive
archive documents
archived tissue samples
Examples of archive in a Sentence
Verb
The organization was devoted to cataloging and archiving printed materials on the labor movement.
She archived her e-mail messages in a folder on her hard drive.
a collection of archived articles
Recent Examples on the Web
Condé Nast, Condé Nast Traveler, 27 Feb. 2026
Largely recorded on Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett’s travels of India—with a cast of the country’s musicians—the album unites the voices of the living and dead, with posthumous recordings from the Gorillaz archive of some of their late collaborators.
—Jazz Monroe, Pitchfork, 27 Feb. 2026
Daniel Ruetenik, CBS News, 27 Feb. 2026
That's a huge improvement over existing magnetic tape and hard drives used for archiving data, which are good for only up to a decade at the most.
—New Atlas, 21 Feb. 2026
See All Example Sentences for archive
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Noun
From the towering pillars of original Tennessee marble preserved in the lounge area to the archive of the original Noels' personal artifacts transforming the mezzanine into an intimate, dark academia library, the Noelle is littered with Easter eggs to the past.
—Condé Nast, Condé Nast Traveler, 27 Feb. 2026
Largely recorded on Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett’s travels of India—with a cast of the country’s musicians—the album unites the voices of the living and dead, with posthumous recordings from the Gorillaz archive of some of their late collaborators.
—Jazz Monroe, Pitchfork, 27 Feb. 2026
Verb
It was also archived by Jmail, a web interface that was created to archive Epstein content.
—Daniel Ruetenik, CBS News, 27 Feb. 2026
That's a huge improvement over existing magnetic tape and hard drives used for archiving data, which are good for only up to a decade at the most.
—New Atlas, 21 Feb. 2026
See All Example Sentences for archive
Cite this Entry
“Archive.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/archive. Accessed 5 Mar. 2026.
Copy CitationKids Definition
archive
1 of 2 noun
ar·chive
ˈär-ˌkīv 
1
: a place in which public records or historical documents are preserved
also
: the material preserved
—usually used in plural
2
: a collection of information
archive
2 of 2 verb
archived; archiving
: to file or collect in or as if in an archive
was archiving documents
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