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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

maintenance.

Actions performed to keep some machine or system functioning or in service.

11 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈmeɪnt(ə)nəns/
  1. Actions performed to keep some machine or system functioning or in service.

    uncountable · usually
  2. 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.

    uncountable · usually
  3. Alimony, a periodical payment or a lump sum made or ordered to be made to a spouse after a divorce.

    UK · uncountable · usually
  4. Child support.

    uncountable · usually
  5. Money required or spent to provide for the needs of a person or a family.

    uncountable · usually
  6. The natural process which keeps an organism alive.

    uncountable · usually
  7. Ellipsis of maintenance medicine.

    Philippines · abbreviation · alt-of · colloquial · ellipsis · uncountable · usually
  8. Software updates that fix bugs and improve stability rather than adding new features.

    attributive · uncountable · usually
    a maintenance release; a maintenance version
Where this word comes from

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.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.