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
Alejandro Antonio Chafuen, Forbes.com, 30 June 2025
An archive photo of a U.S. Forest Service firefighter firing flares into the brush to set a backfire near Calimesa, in Riverside County, California, in October 2005.
—Chloe Mayer, MSNBC Newsweek, 30 June 2025
Willem Marx, NPR, 20 June 2025
Make people actually want to read your emails instead of archiving them.
—Jodie Cook, Forbes.com, 20 June 2025
See All Example Sentences for archive
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Noun
Grove City College—which has stressed Austrian School economics in its undergraduate programs—has completed a major project of digitizing a 20,000-page archive of letters, manuscripts, and notes by the great economist.
—Alejandro Antonio Chafuen, Forbes.com, 30 June 2025
An archive photo of a U.S. Forest Service firefighter firing flares into the brush to set a backfire near Calimesa, in Riverside County, California, in October 2005.
—Chloe Mayer, MSNBC Newsweek, 30 June 2025
Verb
The findings will be published, and the fragments archived for future academic study, with plans for eventual public display, allowing contemporary audiences to witness these extraordinary artistic legacies from a bygone era.
—Willem Marx, NPR, 20 June 2025
Make people actually want to read your emails instead of archiving them.
—Jodie Cook, Forbes.com, 20 June 2025
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 Jul. 2025.
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: a place in which public records or historical documents are preserved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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