maintainer
/meɪnˈteɪnə/
"maintainer" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“maintainer” is uncommon English (frequency #60,944 among 36,575 “M” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #60,944
- frequency rank, English
- 36,575
- “M” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Someone who keeps or upholds something; a steward.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | maintainer |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /meɪnˈteɪnə/ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Frequency rank | #60,944 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “maintainer” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
maintainer is uncommon English at frequency #60,944 among 36,575 “M” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /meɪnˈteɪnə/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.
No misspelling variants are generated for maintainer in our index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Anglo-Norman maintenour, Old French mainteneor, from maintenir (“to maintain”); with later remodelling of the suffix after -er. By surface analysis, maintain + -er. The correct English form is maintainer, spelled M-A-I-N-T-A-I-N-E-R.
Definition
- 1Someone who keeps or upholds something; a steward.
- 2A person who does maintenance work.
- 3A device used to keep teeth in a given position.
Etymology
From Anglo-Norman maintenour, Old French mainteneor, from maintenir (“to maintain”); with later remodelling of the suffix after -er. By surface analysis, maintain + -er.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “maintainer”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is M-A-I-N-T-A-I-N-E-R - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /meɪnˈteɪnə/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Other uncommon English words near this rank
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.