maintenance

English

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maintenance

Wikipedia

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]

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

maintenance (usually uncountable, plural maintenances)

1. 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.

2. (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.
3. (law, UK) Alimony, a periodical payment or a lump sum made or ordered to be made to a spouse after a divorce.
4. (law) Child support.
5. 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.

6. (biology) The natural process which keeps an organism alive.
7. (Philippines, medicine, colloquial) Ellipsis of maintenance medicine.
8. (software engineering, attributive) Software updates that fix bugs and improve stability rather than adding new features.

   a maintenance release; a maintenance version

Derived terms

• automaintenance
• cap of maintenance
• data maintenance
• facilities maintenance
• facility maintenance
• health maintenance organization
• high-maintenance
• low-maintenance
• maintenance-free
• maintenance hole
• maintenance margin
• maintenance medicine
• maintenance window
• nonmaintenance
• percussive maintenance
• postmaintenance
• premaintenance
• preventative maintenance
• separate maintenance
• telemaintenance
• undermaintenance

Related terms

English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *ten- (1 c, 62 e)

Translations

keeping a machine or system in service — see also care

Arabic: صِيَانَة f (ṣiyāna) Armenian: սպասարկում (hy) (spasarkum) Azerbaijani: qulluq Bulgarian: поддръ́жка (bg) f (poddrǎ́žka) Catalan: manteniment (ca) m Chinese: Mandarin: 保養 / 保养 (zh) (bǎoyǎng), 維持 / 维持 (zh) (wéichí), 保守 (zh) (bǎoshǒu) Czech: údržba (cs) f, obsluha (cs) f Danish: vedligeholdelse c, service (da) n Dutch: onderhoud (nl) n, handhaving (nl) f Esperanto: bontenado Estonian: hooldus Finnish: kunnossapito (fi) French: entretien (fr) m, maintenance (fr) f Galician: mantemento (gl) m Georgian: ტექნიკური მომსახურება (ṭekniḳuri momsaxureba) German: Instandhaltung (de) f, Wartung (de) f Hindi: रखरखाव m (rakharkhāv) Hungarian: szerviz (hu), karbantartás (hu) Icelandic: viðhald n Indonesian: perawatan (id), pemeliharaan (id) Irish: coinneáil f Italian: manutenzione (it) f Japanese: 保守 (ja) (ほしゅ, hoshu), 維持 (ja) (い​じ, iji), メンテナンス (ja) (mentenansu) Korean: 보존(保存) (ko) (bojon), 유지(維持) (ko) (yuji) Kurdish: Central Kurdish: خزمەت (xizmet) Latin: tuitiō f Macedonian: одржување n (održuvanje) Malay: penyenggaraan Malayalam: പരിപാലനം (ml) (paripālanaṁ) Marathi: डागडुजी f (ḍāgḍujī), देखरेख f (dekhrekh) Norwegian: Bokmål: vedlikehold n Nynorsk: vedlikehald n Persian: Iranian Persian: نِگَهْداری (negahdâri) Polish: konserwacja (pl) f Portuguese: manutenção (pt) f Russian: обслу́живание (ru) n (obslúživanije), ремо́нт (ru) m (remónt), подде́ржка (ru) f (poddéržka) Scottish Gaelic: gleidheadh m, cumail suas f Serbo-Croatian: Cyrillic: одржа́вање n Roman: održávanje n Slovak: údržba f, obsluha f Spanish: mantenimiento (es) m, manutención (es) f Swahili: matengenezo class 6 Swedish: underhåll (sv) n Tagalog: panataman Tajik: нигоҳдорӣ (nigohdori) Turkish: bakım (tr) Ukrainian: обслуго́вування (uk) n (obsluhóvuvannja), ремо́нт m (remónt), до́гляд m (dóhljad), підтри́мка f (pidtrýmka) Vietnamese: bảo trì (vi), bảo dưỡng

tort

Chinese: Cantonese: 助訟 / 助讼 (zo6 zung6) Mandarin: 助訟 / 助讼 (zhùsòng) Danish: hævdelse c, forsvar n

legal: payment made to a spouse after a divorce — see alimony

child support — see child support

money to provide for the means of living

Bulgarian: издръ́жка (bg) f (izdrǎ́žka) Finnish: elantokustannukset pl German: Unterhalt (de) Latin: tuitiō f Maori: moni oranga Polish: utrzymanie (pl) n Russian: содержа́ние (ru) n (soderžánije), подде́ржка (ru) f (poddéržka) Ukrainian: утри́мання n (utrýmannja)

process of keeping an organism alive

Esperanto: bontenado Finnish: elintoimintojen ylläpito French: maintenance (fr) Italian: mantenimento (it) Portuguese: mantimento (pt) Spanish: mantenimiento (es)

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

Arabic: (please verify) صِيَانَة f (ṣiyāna) Irish: cothabháil f Romanian: (please verify) întreținere (ro) f

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/

• Audio (Paris):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɑ̃s

Noun

maintenance f (plural maintenances)

1. maintenance

Further reading

• “maintenance”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.