maintenance

Meaning

1. Actions performed to keep some machine or system functioning or in service.
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.
3. Alimony, a periodical payment or a lump sum made or ordered to be made to a spouse after a divorce.
4. Child support.
5. Money required or spent to provide for the needs of a person or a family.
6. The natural process which keeps an organism alive.

Pronounced as (IPA)

/ˈmeɪnt(ə)nəns/

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.

Sentences

The tasks of maintenance and operations were assigned to the whites .

Maintenance tasks such as mowing and plowing were performed by the city .