collection of records especially about an institution
"The university hired a specialist to digitize its archives, which contain over two centuries of administrative documents and historical photographs."
plural of archive
"The researchers spent weeks diving into the city archives to find birth records from the 1920s."
In plain English: Archives are collections of important records and documents kept for safekeeping over a long time.
"The university archives contain decades of historical photographs and documents."
Usage: Use "archives" to refer to a collection of historical records or documents kept together for reference and preservation. Do not use it as a verb; instead, use "archive" when describing the act of storing files.
Third-person singular simple present indicative form of archive
"The researcher archives every document she uncovers in her quest to restore the lost history."
In plain English: To archive something means to save it for safekeeping so you can find it later.
"The government archives all official documents for future reference."
Usage: Do not use "archives" as a verb; instead, conjugate it as "archives," "archive," or "archived." The word "archives" is only correct when used as a noun to refer to stored records.
Derived from the Greek arkhivon, meaning "chest" or "storehouse," the term originally referred to a container for documents before evolving to denote the collective records themselves. It entered English in the 17th century through French, retaining its sense of an official repository for historical papers.