Mostly in pl. [a. F. archif, archive, ad. late L. archīum, archīvum, a. Gr. ἀρχεῖον magisterial residence, public office, f. ἀρχή government.]
1. A place in which public records or other important historic documents are kept. Now only in pl.
c. 1645. Howell, Lett., VI. 5. Lubeck, wher the Archifs of their ancient Records is still.
1667. E. Chamberlayne, St. Gt. Brit., I. III. x. (1743), 217. The Tower of London is likewise … the Great Archive where are conserved all the ancient records.
1777. Sir W. Jones, Poems & Ess., Pref. 13. Preserved in the archives of the Royal Society.
1775. Bp. Lowth, Let. Warburton, 43. Laid up in the same Archive.
1866. Felton, Anc. & Mod. Greece, II. xi. 209. That authenticated copies … should be deposited in the public archives.
2. A historical record or document so preserved. Now chiefly in pl.
1638. Penit. Conf., xii. (1657), 319. Constitutions … found amongst the Archives at Bennet College.
1683. Dryden, Plutarch, 63. He had travell’d over Greece to peruse the archives of every city.
1795. Ld. Auckland, in Corr. (1862), III. 284. Lord St. Helens was obliged to burn all our Hague archives.
1823. Lamb, Elia (1860), 15. Some rotten archive, rummaged out of some seldom-explored press.
1863. Mary Howitt, trans. F. Bremer’s Greece, I. i. 19. These inscriptions constitute a portion of the archives of ancient Athens.
3. transf. or fig. in both prec. senses.
1603. Holland, Plutarch’s Mor., 140. These curious meddlers … make of their memorie a most unpleasant Archive or Register.
1830. Lyell, Princ. Geol. (1875), II. III. xxxv. 268. Those periods of the past, of which they [geologists] were studying the archives.
1865. Carlyle, Fredk. Gt., XI. ii. IV. 38. So expert was he, and a living archive in that business.
1878. Seeley, Stein, III. 421. The Universities, archives of all the errors of the age.
