Archiefstuk

Archiefstuk is a Dutch noun that literally means “archive piece.” It is not a standard term in formal archival practice or dictionaries and is more commonly encountered in informal or regional usage. In everyday speech, archiefstuk can refer to a single item within an archival collection.

Usage and meaning in archives: In professional settings, items are usually described as records or objects within a fonds, series, dossier, or as individual archival items. When archiefstuk appears, it generally denotes a discrete unit within an archive—such as a document, photograph, letter, or artifact—that has a definite provenance. Such an item would typically be described with metadata (date, maker, title, physical form, current location) and may receive a unique identifier or accession number.

Culinary note: Archiefstuk has no widely recognized culinary meaning in Dutch. The standard term for a beef steak is biefstuk. If the word appears outside archival contexts, it is likely a playful or erroneous usage or a regional joke rather than a formal culinary term.

Etymology: The word is a compound of archief (archive) and stuk (piece), reflecting its literal sense as a piece belonging to an archive.

See also: archief, fonds, dossier, item, biefstuk.