maintenance
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English
Etymology
From Middle English mayntenaunce, from Old French maintenance, from maintenir, from Latin manus tenēre (“to hold in the hand”). By surface analysis, maintain + -ance.
Note that maintain has undergone a sound and spelling change, hence is spelt with -tain-, rather than the -ten- still found in maintenance.
Pronunciation
Noun
maintenance (usually uncountable, plural maintenances)
- Actions performed to keep some machine or system functioning or in service.
- 2019 October, Ian Walmsley, “Cleaning up”, in Modern Railways, page 42:
- They are all preventable by proper maintenance, but non-safety critical maintenance has to be evaluated, so failures are an accepted penalty for keeping maintenance costs down.
- (law) A tort and (in some jurisdictions) an offence committed when a third party who does not have a bona fide interest in a lawsuit provides help or acquires an interest to a litigant's lawsuit.
- (law, UK) Alimony, a periodical payment or a lump sum made or ordered to be made to a spouse after a divorce.
- (law) Child support.
- Money required or spent to provide for the needs of a person or a family.
- 1815 [1802], William Wordsworth, Resolution and Independence:
- From Pond to Pond he roamed, from moor to moor; / Housing, with God's good help, by choice or chance: / And in this way he gained an honest maintenance.
- (biology) The natural process which keeps an organism alive.
Derived terms
Related terms
Translations
keeping a machine or system in service — see also care
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legal: payment made to a spouse after a divorce — see alimony
child support — see child support
money to provide for the means of living
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process of keeping an organism alive
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked
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Further reading
- “maintenance”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
- “maintenance”, in The Century Dictionary , New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
- “maintenance”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
French
Etymology
From maintenir (“to maintain”) + -ance.
Pronunciation
Noun
maintenance f (plural maintenances)
Further reading
- “maintenance”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé , 2012.