maintenance

noun

1. (uncountable, usually)Actions performed to keep some machine or system functioning or in service.

   “They are all preventable by proper maintenance, but non-safety critical maintenance has to be evaluated, so failures are an accepted penalty for keeping maintenance costs down.”

2. (uncountable, usually)A 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.
3. (UK, uncountable, usually)Alimony, a periodical payment or a lump sum made or ordered to be made to a spouse after a divorce.
4. (uncountable, usually)Child support.
5. (uncountable, usually)Money required or spent to provide for the needs of a person or a family.

   “From Pond to Pond he roamed, from moor to moor; / Housing, with God's good help, by choice or chance: / And in this way he gained an honest maintenance.”

6. (uncountable, usually)The natural process which keeps an organism alive.
7. (Philippines, abbreviation, alt-of, colloquial, ellipsis, uncountable, usually)Ellipsis of maintenance medicine.
8. (attributive, uncountable, usually)Software updates that fix bugs and improve stability rather than adding new features.

   “a maintenance release; a maintenance version”