The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Archive \Ar"chive\, n.; pl. Archives. [F. archives, pl., L.
   archivum, archium, fr. Gr. ? government house, ? ? archives,
   fr. ? the first place, government. See Archi-, pref.]
   1. pl. The place in which public records or historic
      documents are kept.
      [1913 Webster]

            Our words . . . . become records in God's court, and
            are laid up in his archives as witnesses. --Gov. of
                                                  Tongue.
      [1913 Webster]

   2. pl. Public records or documents preserved as evidence of
      facts; as, the archives of a country or family.
      [1913 Webster] [Rarely used in sing.]
      [1913 Webster]

            Some rotten archive, rummaged out of some seldom
            explored press.                       --Lamb.
      [1913 Webster]

   Syn: Registers; records; chronicles.
        [1913 Webster]

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):

archive
    n 1: a depository containing historical records and documents
    v 1: put into an archive [syn: archive, file away]

The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (30 December 2018):

archive

   1.  A single file containing one or (usually)
   more separate files plus information to allow them to be
   extracted (separated) by a suitable program.

   Archives are usually created for software distribution or
   backup.  tar is a common format for Unix archives, and
   arc or PKZIP for MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows.

   2.  To transfer files to slower, cheaper
   media (usually magnetic tape) to free the hard disk space
   they occupied.  This is now normally done for long-term
   storage but in the 1960s, when disk was much more expensive,
   files were often shuffled regularly between disk and tape.

   3.  archive site.

   (1996-12-08)