maintenance
/ˈmeɪnt(ə)nəns/
"maintenance" is a 11-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“maintenance” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #2,741 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #2,741
- frequency rank, English
- 11
- letters
- 17
- tracked misspellings
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Actions performed to keep some machine or system functioning or in service.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | maintenance |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈmeɪnt(ə)nəns/ |
| Letters | 11 |
| Frequency rank | #2,741 |
| Misspellings tracked | 17 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “maintenance” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for maintenance is 11 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈmeɪnt(ə)nəns/. Corpus data places it at rank #2,741 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 8 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 17 likely wrong-spelling variants for maintenance, with forms such as "amintenance", "mainetnance", and "mainntenance". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English mayntenaunce, from Old French maintenance, from maintenir, from Latin manus tenēre (“to hold in the hand”). By surface analysis, maintain + -ance. Note that maintain has undergone a sound and spelling change, hence is spelt with -tain-, … The correct English form is maintenance, spelled M-A-I-N-T-E-N-A-N-C-E.
Definition
- 1Actions performed to keep some machine or system functioning or in service.
- 2A tort and (in some jurisdictions) an offence committed when a third party who does not have a bona fide interest in a lawsuit provides help or acquires an interest to a litigant's lawsuit.
- 3Alimony, a periodical payment or a lump sum made or ordered to be made to a spouse after a divorce.
- 4Child support.
- 5Money required or spent to provide for the needs of a person or a family.
- 6The natural process which keeps an organism alive.
- 7Ellipsis of maintenance medicine.
- 8Software updates that fix bugs and improve stability rather than adding new features.
Etymology
From Middle English mayntenaunce, from Old French maintenance, from maintenir, from Latin manus tenēre (“to hold in the hand”). By surface analysis, maintain + -ance. Note that maintain has undergone a sound and spelling change, hence is spelt with -tain-, rather than the -ten- still found in maintenance.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: amintenance,mainetnance,mainntenance,mainteannce,maintenacne,maintenancce,maintenanec,maintenannce,maintenence,maintennace,maintennance,maintneance,mainttenance,maitnenance,manitenance,miantenance,mmaintenance
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of maintenance - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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 “maintenance”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is M-A-I-N-T-E-N-A-N-C-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈmeɪnt(ə)nəns/ (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
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.