maintenance

Meaning

Noun

• Actions performed to keep some machine or system functioning or in service.
• A tort 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.
• The natural process which keeps an organism alive.

Origin

• "). Surface analysis is 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.