I. ar ‧ chive 1 /ˈɑːkaɪv $ ˈɑːr-/ BrE AmE noun [countable]
[ Date: 1600-1700 ; Language: French ; Origin: Latin archivum , from Greek archeion 'government building' (in plural, 'official documents' ), from arche 'rule, government' ]
1 . a place where a large number of historical records are stored, or the records that are stored:
an archive of the writer’s unpublished work
2 . technical copies of a computer’s ↑ file s that are stored on a ↑ disk or in the computer’s memory in a way that uses less space than usual, so that the computer can keep them for a long time
—archive adjective :
interesting archive material
—archival /ɑːˈkaɪv ə l $ ɑːr-/ adjective :
archival footage of the President’s visit in 1969
II. archive 2 BrE AmE verb [transitive]
1 . to put documents, books, information etc in an archive
2 . to save a computer ↑ file in a way that uses less space than usual, because you do not use that file often but may need it in the future
—archiving noun [uncountable] :
electronic archiving systems