maintenaunce

Noun

maintenance (usually uncountable, plural maintenances)

1. (usually) 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.2019 October, Ian Walmsley, “Cleaning up”, in Modern Railways, page 42
2. (usually) 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. (UK, usually) Alimony, a periodical payment or a lump sum made or ordered to be made to a spouse after a divorce.
4. (usually) Child support.
5. (usually) 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.1815 [1802], William Wordsworth, Resolution and Independence
6. (usually) The natural process which keeps an organism alive.

See all 7 meanings of maintenance