English Online Dictionary. What means maintenance? What does maintenance mean?
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
- IPA(key): /ˈmeɪnt(ə)nəns/, /ˈmeɪntɪnəns/, [ˈmẽɪ̃(n)ʔ(ə)nəns]
Noun
maintenance (usually uncountable, plural maintenances)
- Actions performed to keep some machine or system functioning or in service.
- (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.
- (biology) The natural process which keeps an organism alive.
- (Philippines, medicine, colloquial) Ellipsis of maintenance medicine.
Derived terms
Related terms
Translations
Further reading
- “maintenance”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
- William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “maintenance”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
- “maintenance”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
French
Etymology
From maintenir (“to maintain”) + -ance.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /mɛ̃t.nɑ̃s/
- Rhymes: -ɑ̃s
Noun
maintenance f (plural maintenances)
- maintenance
Further reading
- “maintenance”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.