maintenance

Meanings

Plural: maintenances

Noun

• activity involved in maintaining something in good working order
• means of maintenance of a family or group
• court-ordered support paid by one spouse to another after they are separated
• the act of sustaining life by food or providing a means of subsistence
• the unauthorized interference in a legal action by a person having no interest in it (as by helping one party with money or otherwise to continue the action) so as to obstruct justice or promote unnecessary litigation or unsettle the peace of the community
  • "unlike champerty, criminal maintenance does not necessarily involve personal profit"
• Actions performed to keep some machine or system functioning or in service.
• 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.
• 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.

Synonyms

alimony, care, criminal maintenance, sustainment, sustenance, sustentation, upkeep