In the 16th century, Turkish women could divorce their husbands if the man failed to keep his family’s pot filled with coffee.
MAINTAINING
Noun
maintaining (uncountable)
The act of doing maintenance.
Verb
maintaining
present participle of maintain
Anagrams
• inanimating
Source: Wiktionary
MAINTAIN
Main*tain, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Maintained; p. pr. & vb. n. Maintaining.] Etym: [OE. maintenen, F. maintenir, properly, to hold by the hand; main hand (L. manus) + F. tenir to hold (L.tenere). See Manual, and Tenable.]
1. 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.
2. To keep possession of; to hold and defend; not to surrender or relinquish. God values . . . every one as he maintains his post. Grew.
3. To continue; not to suffer to cease or fail. Maintain talk with the duke. Shak.
4. To bear the expense of; to support; to keep up; to supply with what is needed. Glad, by his labor, to maintain his life. Stirling. What maintains one vice would bring up two children. Franklin.
5. To affirm; to support or defend by argument. It is hard to maintain the truth, but much harder to be maintained by it. South.
Syn.
– To assert; vindicate; allege. See Assert.
Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition
Recent Word Finds
Word of the Day
15 May 2025
PARSIMONIOUS
(adjective) excessively unwilling to spend; “parsimonious thrift relieved by few generous impulses”; “lived in a most penurious manner--denying himself every indulgence”
Coffee Trivia
