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archival

archival

21 6.7
Relating to the storage and care of old papers or photos
  • adjective
  • /ɑrˈkaɪvəl/
  • Specialized
translation icon : archivístico
  • She used archival paper to create a scrapbook of her family's history, making sure it lasted for generations.
  • archival data
  • archival research
  • archival sources

But it is not archival, shall we say.

Autoplay Next

Examples

  • She never did, and through recent archival research we now understand how that legend came about.

  • The paper document was transferred to acetate for archival purposes.

  • So my students and I were doing archival research.

  • To address these issues, we identified five archival data sets from children.

    Academic text (2013)
  • A student's first encounter with archival materials can be, as it was for me, life changing.

  • These photos are for the archival book that Penguin is doing.

  • Our case study draws on field, library, and archival research (Table I).

    Academic text (2008)
  • First, we downloaded archival images from NASA's website and studied them carefully.

    Fiction book (2001)
  • Well, mostly archival research, cataloguing old records, and writing liner notes for their CD reissues.

    Fiction book (2001)
  • In the quantitative portion of the study, the authors examined archival data for students participating in a weekly after-school tutoring program.

    Academic text (2011)

How Durable

permanent
650 3.2
archival
  • Specialized
21 6.7
stable
  • Specialized
30 6.6
temporary
557 3.0
fragile
83 3.4

Surface Forms

archival positive

Morphology

archival = archive (transparent) = archive + al

The adjective is formed regularly from 'archive' with the suffix '-al', and its meaning is directly related to archives and archival records.

Etymology

Archival comes from archive, which goes back to the old Greek word arkheion meaning 'public office' or a place where official papers were kept. So archival describes things used to keep, store, or study old records and documents.