archival

See also: archivál

English
WOTD – 27 October 2022

Etymology

The adjective is derived from archive (“place for storing earlier, and often historical, material; material so kept, considered as a whole”, noun) +‎ -al (suffix meaning ‘of or pertaining to’ forming adjectives).[1]

The noun is derived from archive (“to put (something) in an archive”, verb) +‎ -al (suffix forming nouns, especially of verbal action).

Pronunciation
  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ɑːˈkaɪv(ə)l/, /ˈɑːkɪv(ə)l/
  • Audio (Southern England)(file)
  • (General American) IPA(key): /ˌɑɹˈkaɪv(ə)l/
  • Rhymes: (one pronunciation) -aɪvəl
  • Hyphenation: ar‧chiv‧al

Adjective

archival (not comparable)

  1. Of or pertaining to an archive or archiving.
    • 2021 March 24, Joseph Brennan, “Metallic Marvels from Rail’s Iron Age”, in Rail, number 927, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire: Bauer Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 59:
      In archival photographs, these lost structures appear almost futuristic (even today) in the way they carried trains across deep ravines on slender, balanced combinations of wrought and cast iron.
  2. Of a material: having a quality suited to the conservational needs of archiving.
    archival boxes    archival paper

Derived terms

Translations
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Noun

archival (countable and uncountable, plural archivals)

  1. (uncountable) The practice of storing items in an archive; archiving; (countable) an instance of this.
    Synonyms: (rare) archivation, (rare) archivization
    Our nightly computer backups include the archival of old e-mail messages.

Translations

References
  1. “archival, adj.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, September 2018; “archival, adj.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Further reading
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