maintenance
noun
- operational and functional checks, servicing, repair or replacing of a product or technical system or parts thereof in order to keep their necessary technical condition
- act of maintaining something
Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /ˈmeɪnt(ə)nəns/ / /ˈmeɪntɪnəns/
noun
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.
- Actions performed to keep some machine or system functioning or in service.
“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.”
- 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.
- Alimony, a periodical payment or a lump sum made or ordered to be made to a spouse after a divorce.
- Child support.
- Money required or spent to provide for the needs of a person or a family.
“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.”
- The natural process which keeps an organism alive.
- Ellipsis of maintenance medicine.
- Software updates that fix bugs and improve stability rather than adding new features.
“a maintenance release; a maintenance version”