Other forms: maintained, maintaining, maintains
To maintain something is to keep it in good working order — not to mend it after it breaks, but to stop it breaking. Oiling a bike chain, servicing the boiler every autumn, painting the railings before the rust gets under the paint.
The word reaches well past machines. You maintain a speed, a temperature, eye contact, silence, and good relations with the neighbours: keeping something going at the same level. You maintain a family when you pay for their food and their rent. And you maintain that something is true when you go on saying it while other people doubt you — he maintains he was at home all evening. Watch the noun, which is where people fall over: it is maintenance, with no i in the middle.
1verbmaintainTo keep something in good condition by looking after it regularly.~23%
“The council maintains the footpaths along the river.”
synonyms: service, look after
2verbsustainTo keep something at the same level or in the same state.~73%
“She maintained a steady pace for the whole race.”
3verbinsistTo insist that something is true when other people doubt it.~2%
“He maintains that he posted the letter on Tuesday.”
4verbpayTo pay for someone's food, home and other needs.~2%
“He maintained a family of five on a single wage.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 17 sentences found in the wild and placed 17 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Maintain comes through Old French maintenir from Latin manū tenēre — to hold in the hand. The idea has not moved: whatever you maintain is something you keep hold of, whether that is a boiler, a speed, or a story you refuse to change.
Proto-Indo-European
*ten-
Latin
manuteneo — I support
Old French
maintenir
Middle English
mayntenen
English, today
maintain
Built from
From Middle English mayntenen, from Old French maintenir, from Latin manuteneo (“I support”), from Latin manū (“with/in/by the hand”) + teneo (“to hold”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA