Archive, n.; pl. Archives. — Webster enters it under “archive”
Etymology: [F. archives, pl., L. archivum, archium, fr. Gr. Archi-, pref.]
1. pl.
The place in which public records or historic documents are kept. Our words . . . . become records in God's court, and are laid up in his archives as witnesses. Gov. of Tongue.
2. pl.
Public records or documents preserved as evidence of facts; as, the archives of a country or family. [Rarely used in sing.] Some rotten archive, rummaged out of some seldom explored press. Lamb.
1 more senses
Syn. -- Registers; records; chronicles.
Shades of meaning
Fernald has no entry of its own for archives; he lists it under history.
Where he writes about it:
Archives are public records, which may be annals, or chronicles, or deeds of property, etc. — from history
Annals, archives, chronicles, biographies, and memoirs and other records furnish the materials of history. — from history
Archives, in the sense here considered, are documents or records, often legal records, preserved in a public or official depository; the word archives is also applied to the place where such documents are regularly deposited and preserved. — from record