Maintenance or maintainance: which is correct?
Standard form: maintenance — Non-standard: maintainance / maintenence / maintanance. Maintenance = the process of keeping something in good condition; the provision of financial support.
- Part of speech
- noun
- Source
- Oxford
Why
Oxford: although the verb is maintain, the noun was borrowed separately from French maintenance and is spelled with -ten- in the middle and the ending -ance — like the French source, not like the English verb.
Examples
- The lift is closed for maintenance until Friday.
- Regular maintenance keeps the engine efficient.
Wrong → right
Native spelling engine
- Checked against
- Merriam-Webster / Oxford
- Spelling authority
- Merriam-Webster · Oxford English Dictionary / Oxford spelling · SCOWL
- Commonly confused and non-standard forms
- 64
- Dictionary
- Hunspell en_US / en_GB / en_AU / en_CA · Dictionary license: MIT AND BSD (SCOWL combined licence)
Commonly confused words
Commonly confused words are pairs or groups that sound or look alike but differ in meaning or grammar, such as affect and effect, its and it’s, or principal and principle. Each entry here explains the difference in plain words, shows it in two example sentences and names the convention it follows: Merriam-Webster for American English, Oxford for British English. Spelling variants such as colour and color are marked as correct in their own variety, not as errors.
Related entries
- Standard form: privilegeNon-standard: priviledge, privelege, privilage
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- Standard form: a lotNon-standard: alot
- Standard form: accommodateNon-standard: accomodate, acommodate, acomodate
- Standard form: definitelyNon-standard: definately, definitly, definetly
- Desert or dessert