storage
/ˈstɔːrɪdʒ/ (bre, ipa) · /ˈstɔːrɪdʒ/ (ame, ipa) · /ˈstȯr-ij/ (ame, mw)
storage — noun
1. the activity of keeping items such as food, clothes, or furniture in a suitable
the activity of keeping items such as food, clothes, or furniture in a suitable room or container so that they stay in good condition and can be used later, or the area designed for this purpose
The basement provides extra storage for all our winter clothes and camping equipment.
collocation: provide / extra storage
Rafael built wooden shelves in the garage to increase his storage space.
collocation: storage space
After the harvest, Liang stored the vegetables in a cool, dark storage room.
Old photographs need careful storage in acid-free boxes to prevent fading.
- storing
the verb form referring to the action rather than the space
- keeping
broader term covering any act of retaining, not necessarily organized
- preservation
focuses on maintaining quality and preventing decay
- disposal
getting rid of things rather than keeping them
2. a paid service offered by a company where people can leave furniture and other p
a paid service offered by a company where people can leave furniture and other personal goods at a secure facility for a period of time, typically when moving home or travelling, or the fee charged for this
While studying abroad for a year, Nadia put all her furniture in storage.
collocation: put [sth] in storage
Imran paid three months of storage fees in advance to reserve a large unit.
collocation: storage fees
The storage warehouse has twenty-four-hour security cameras and climate control.
Before selling their house, the Kwame family moved extra boxes into storage.
- warehousing
more formal and usually refers to large commercial quantities, not household items
- custody
implies legal safekeeping, not just temporary storage
用法筆記
Commonly used in the phrase 'in storage' to describe items kept at a commercial facility. The verb 'put' is the most frequent collocate: 'put something in storage'.
常見錯誤
3. the recording and keeping of digital information such as documents, photos, or p
the recording and keeping of digital information such as documents, photos, or programmes on a computer, phone, or other electronic device, or the hardware designed to hold this information
This tablet has only 32 gigabytes of storage, which fills up quickly with apps.
measured in gigabytes, terabytes
Iris backs up her design files on an external storage drive every Friday.
collocation: storage drive
Cloud storage costs less than buying physical hard drives for your data.
Daichi ran out of storage on his laptop and had to delete old video projects.
- memory
often used interchangeably with storage in everyday speech, but technically refers to temporary working memory (RAM)
- disk space
specific to hard drives and solid-state drives
- capacity
focuses on how much data can be held
用法筆記
Often paired with a unit of capacity (gigabytes, terabytes) or a type (cloud storage, internal storage, external storage). 'Storage' in this sense is uncountable — do not say 'a storage' when referring to capacity.