maintain
Americanverb (used with object)
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to keep in existence or continuance; preserve; retain.
to maintain good relations with neighboring countries.
- Antonyms:
- discontinue
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to keep in an appropriate condition, operation, or force; keep unimpaired.
to maintain order; to maintain public highways.
- Synonyms:
- keep up
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to keep in a specified state, position, etc..
to maintain a correct posture; to maintain good health.
-
He maintained that the country was going downhill.
- Synonyms:
- asseverate
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to support in speech or argument, as a statement or proposition.
- Antonyms:
- contradict
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to keep or hold against attack.
to maintain one's ground.
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to provide for the upkeep or support of; carry the expenses of.
to maintain a family.
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to sustain or support.
not enough water to maintain life.
verb
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to continue or retain; keep in existence
-
to keep in proper or good condition
to maintain a building
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to support a style of living
the money maintained us for a month
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(takes a clause as object) to state or assert
he maintained that Talbot was wrong
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to defend against contradiction; uphold
she maintained her innocence
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to defend against physical attack
Usage
What are other ways to say maintain? To maintain something is to keep it in existence, or to preserve it. How does maintain compare to the synonyms support, sustain, and uphold? Learn more on Thesaurus.com.
Synonym Usage
Maintain, assert, aver, allege, hold, state all mean to express an opinion, judgment, or position. Maintain carries the implications of both firmness and persistence in declaring or supporting a conviction: She maintained her client's innocence even in the face of damaging evidence. Assert suggests assurance, confidence, and sometimes aggressiveness in the effort to persuade others to agree with or accept one's position: He asserted again and again the government's right to control the waterway. Aver, like assert, implies confident declaration and sometimes suggests a firmly positive or peremptory tone; in legal use aver means “to allege as fact”: to aver that the evidence is incontrovertible. Allege indicates a statement without evidence to support it, and thus can imply doubt as to the validity or accuracy of an assertion: The official is alleged to have been unaware of the crime. Hold means simply to have or express a conviction or belief: We hold these truths to be self-evident; She held that her rights had been violated. State usually suggests a declaration that is forthright and unambiguous: He stated his reasons in clear, simple language.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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maintainabilitynoun
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maintainernoun
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premaintainverb (used with object)
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undermaintainverb (used with object)
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maintainableadjective
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self-maintainedadjective
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self-maintainingadjective
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undermaintainedadjective
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unmaintainableadjective
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unmaintainedadjective
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well-maintainedadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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maintainsimple
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maintainssimple
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have maintainedperfect
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has maintainedperfect
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am maintainingprogressive
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are maintainingprogressive
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is maintainingprogressive
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have been maintainingperfect progressive
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has been maintainingperfect progressive
Past
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maintainedsimple
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had maintainedperfect
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was maintainingprogressive
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were maintainingprogressive
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had been maintainingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of maintain
First recorded in 1200–50; Middle English mainteinen from Old French maintenir, ultimately from Medieval Latin manūtenēre, Latin manū tenēre literally, “to hold in hand,” equivalent to manū, ablative of manus “hand” + tenēre “to hold”; see manual, tenet
Explanation
Maintain means to keep the same––keep steady, keep up, or keep going. Sure, you can ride your bike super fast on a flat surface, but it can be hard to maintain that speed, or keep the same speed, going up a hill. When you maintain a strict study schedule, you stick to it. When you maintain your car in good working order, you take good care of it. If you maintain records of your business activity, it means you make notes of your sales and expenses. If a teacher maintains order in the classroom, she never lets disruptions get out of hand. If you maintain your family, you keep them in food, shelter and clothing. If you maintain that eating animals is cruel, you keep that position.
Vocabulary lists containing maintain
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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.
See Examples For:
“We believe the market is overly optimistic about CXMT’s ability to maintain high memory prices and profitability,” he says.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 29, 2026
The Gryffindor and Slytherin maintain a traditional rivalry, the Ravenclaw nerds out about magical history and the Hufflepuff attempts to mediate them all.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 29, 2026
The French Coastguard said the exercise was intended to "maintain high levels of operability" and that "safety measures were respected".
From BBC ● Jul. 29, 2026
Instead, those buyers are choosing to go used or to keep and maintain their vehicles for longer.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 29, 2026
Kuhn tried to maintain both these views, despite the tension between them, by distinguishing revolutionary science from normal science.
From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton
The company, which maintains a Hollywood office, said the changes are necessary to “put our business on a path to profitable and sustainable growth.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 27, 2026
He now maintains their relationship was limited to the movie.
From Barron's ● Jul. 25, 2026
ANZ maintains its end-Q3 2026 Brent crude forecast of $92 per barrel, but warns if regional supply disruptions intensify, Brent could rise towards $120 a barrel.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 2026
The government maintains there has been no decision to delay its introduction.
From BBC ● Jul. 23, 2026
The philosopher Willard Van Orman Quine goes even further and maintains that experience never forces one to reject any particular belief.
From "Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences" by John Allen Paulos
Bumblebees are social, living in colonies that are maintained by very active workers with a relatively short lifespan of 4-6 weeks.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 29, 2026
As inflation and interest rates were rising, he maintained that equities would climb.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 29, 2026
Despite rising prices, Takaichi on Monday maintained a cautious stance.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 28, 2026
A spokeswoman for Anthropic said that Claude users maintained control over if and when to share conversations they had with the chatbot.
From BBC ● Jul. 27, 2026
Because—if she’d only been more consistent and sure...If she’d only maintained the distance she’d created after she stopped driving The Taker home...If, if, if...
From "A Heart in a Body in the World" by Deb Caletti
The Belgian-French chemical company’s second quarter was better than expected with the group maintaining its full-year outlook.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 29, 2026
SoFi on Wednesday also raised its full-year outlook for adjusted net revenue to between $4.75 billion and $4.85 billion, up from $4.65 billion, while maintaining other targets.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 29, 2026
"The market is increasingly rewarding companies that expand revenue while maintaining spending discipline, and penalising those whose ambitions have outrun their balance sheets," said Fabien Yip at IG.
From Barron's ● Jul. 29, 2026
The new private entity would manage its Golden Globes assets while maintaining the charitable and philanthropic programs in a separate nonprofit entity.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 28, 2026
In 1956, he returned to Hampton, taking a job at the post office as a mail carrier, maintaining his trim military shape through miles of walking each day.
From "Hidden Figures" by Margot Lee Shetterly
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
