maintenance
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English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From Middle English mayntenaunce, from Old French maintenance, from maintenir, from Latin manus tenēre (“to hold in the hand”). Surface analysis is 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[edit]
Noun[edit]
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[edit]
Related terms[edit]
Translations[edit]
keeping a machine or system in service
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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[edit]
- maintenance in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
- maintenance in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911
- maintenance at OneLook Dictionary Search
French[edit]
Etymology[edit]
maintenir (“to maintain”) + -ance.
Pronunciation[edit]
Noun[edit]
maintenance f (plural maintenances)
Further reading[edit]
- “maintenance”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
Categories:
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *ten-
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms derived from Old French
- English terms derived from Latin
- English terms suffixed with -ance
- English 3-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English uncountable nouns
- English countable nouns
- English terms with quotations
- en:Law
- British English
- en:Biology
- English terms derived from the Latin word manus
- French terms suffixed with -ance
- French 2-syllable words
- French terms with IPA pronunciation
- French terms with audio links
- Rhymes:French/ɑ̃s
- Rhymes:French/ɑ̃s/3 syllables
- French lemmas
- French nouns
- French countable nouns
- French feminine nouns