MAINTAIN • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Maintain

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/meɪntˈeɪn/ Listen

verb

Maintain v. t. (past & past part. maintained; pres. part. maintaining)

To hold or keep in any particular state or condition; to support; to sustain; to uphold; to keep up; not to suffer to fail or decline; as, to maintain a certain degree of heat in a furnace; to maintain a fence or a railroad; to maintain the digestive process or powers of the stomach; to maintain the fertility of soil; to maintain present reputation.

To keep possession of; to hold and defend; not to surrender or relinquish. "God values... every one as he maintains his post."

To continue; not to suffer to cease or fail. "Maintain talk with the duke."

To bear the expense of; to support; to keep up; to supply with what is needed. "Glad, by his labor, to maintain his life." "What maintains one vice would bring up two children."

To affirm; to support or defend by argument. "It is hard to maintain the truth, but much harder to be maintained by it."

Synonyms: To assert; vindicate; allege. See Assert.

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Etymology of 'Maintain'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Maintain" Quotes from Famous Books

... rat in its original form rejoined with a sneering smile: 'You all lack, I maintain, experience of the world; what you simply are aware of is that this fruit is the scented taro, but have no idea that the young daughter of Mr. Lin, of the salt tax, is, in real truth, a ...

— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... dawn by a party of the enemy, who fired at and pursued him. The fugitive being fortunate enough to escape their search, they returned to the house, and charged the family with harbouring one of the proscribed traitors. An old woman had presence of mind enough to maintain that the man they had seen was the shepherd. 'Why did he not stop when we called to him?' said the soldier.—'He is as deaf, poor man, as a peat-stack,' answered the ready-witted domestic.—'Let him be sent for, directly.' The real shepherd accordingly ...

— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott

... to be six times stronger and the animal ten times more powerful; launch it at the rate of twenty miles an hour, and you obtain a shock capable of producing the catastrophe required. Until further information, therefore, I shall maintain it to be a sea-unicorn of colossal dimensions, armed not with a halberd, but with a real spur, as the armoured frigates, or the 'rams' of war, whose massiveness and motive power it would possess at the same time. Thus may this puzzling phenomenon ...

— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne

... inhabitants. For the most part, however, we can approximate Collins's personality by reversing many of Sir Roger's traits. Often at war with his world, as the spectatorial character was not, he managed to maintain an intellectual rapport with it and even with those who sought his humiliation. He never—as an instance—disguised his philosophical distrust of Samuel Clarke; yet during any debate he planned "most certainly [to] outdo him in civility and good manners."[2] ...

— A Discourse Concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing (1729) • Anthony Collins

... clothing were found along the route, showing that on leaving the ships the hapless men considered themselves capable of considerable exertion; and as they carried a large amount of powder and shot, they undoubtedly hoped to maintain themselves ...

— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston

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