archives

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of archive.

   The national archives hold records dating back several centuries.

   Historians spent months combing through the museum's archives.

   Note

   The singular can name either the place or what it holds, but the plural leans toward the collection as a whole: a family's archives, a newspaper's archives. In the names of institutions, the plural often behaves as one collective body and takes a singular verb (the National Archives is open today), even though its form is plural.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of archive.

   The clerk archives each contract once it has been signed.

   Our system archives user data after ninety days of inactivity.

   Note

   Here the word works as a transitive verb, so it normally takes a direct object: the library archives its older books. That object is the quickest way to tell it from the plural noun, which has the same spelling. In a headline or a list with no object in sight, a reader will usually take archives as the noun.

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