maintenance
Usage
What are other ways to say maintenance?
Generally, maintenance refers to care or upkeep, as of machinery or property. But sometimes, maintenance refers to what is spent for the living of another: to provide for the maintenance or support of someone. Maintenance occasionally refers to the allowance itself provided for livelihood: They are entitled to a maintenance from this estate. Living and livelihood (a somewhat more formal word), both refer to what one earns to keep (oneself) alive, but are seldom interchangeable within the same phrase: to earn one's living; to threaten one's livelihood. “To make a living” suggests making just enough to keep alive, and is particularly frequent in the negative: You cannot make a living out of that. “To make a livelihood out of something” suggests rather making a business of it: to make a livelihood out of knitting hats.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
This would "enable the restoration of an historic lost orchard along the Ridgeway corridor" and "enable the planting and maintenance of a thousand new trees surrounding and connecting the orchard habitat", the statement said.
From BBC • Jun. 10, 2026
“I find garden maintenance so relaxing,” she adds.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 10, 2026
American rail companies have developed world-leading technologies that can monitor track conditions in real time, deploy predictive maintenance and optimize network operations with remarkable precision.
From MarketWatch • Jun. 9, 2026
Growing maintenance costs, tax changes and workers returning to the office have forced sellers to cut prices on large, luxurious estates from the Cotswolds to the northern Home Counties.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 8, 2026
He continued straight through, into an inner chamber, just missing a network of steel girders and maintenance ladders.
From "Stormbreaker" by Anthony Horowitz
Vocabulary lists containing maintenance
Freak the Mighty
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Declaration of the Rights of Woman (1791)
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Franklin D. Roosevelt, "A Date That Will Live In Infamy" (1941)
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