On this page13 sections
- Quick picker
- Maintain as "keep it going": keep, sustain, keep up
- Maintain as "don't let it be lost": preserve, retain, protect
- Maintain a standard or a rule: uphold, stick to, observe
- Maintain equipment and property: service, look after, keep up
- Maintain as "say firmly": insist, claim, assert, contend
- Maintain a family: support, provide for
- Common phrases with maintain, and what to say instead
- Maintained on a resume
- Words that look like synonyms but are not
- Opposites of maintain
- Practice: choose the better word
- Quick answers
The plainest other word for maintain is keep: keep a steady speed means the same as maintain a steady speed. For holding something at a level over time, use sustain, preserve, uphold or keep up. For looking after a machine or a building, use service, look after or take care of. And when maintain means to say something firmly, as in she maintains that she was at home, the synonyms are insist, claim, assert and contend.
Those are four different jobs, and a synonym that fits one will be wrong in another. You can service a boiler but not a friendship, and you can uphold a standard but not a lawn. So this page goes meaning by meaning: pick the sense you need from the table, then read the notes on the words that are easy to confuse.
Quick picker
| You mean… | Words to try | Example |
|---|---|---|
| keep something at the same level | keep, keep up, sustain, hold, continue | She kept up the pace for the whole race. |
| stop something good from being lost | preserve, protect, retain, safeguard, conserve | The town has preserved its old market square. |
| stand by a rule, standard or decision | uphold, honour, observe, stick to, keep to | The court upheld the original ruling. |
| keep equipment or property in good condition | service, look after, take care of, keep up, repair | We service the lifts every six months. |
| say firmly that something is true | insist, claim, assert, contend, argue, hold | He insists that the figures are correct. |
| pay for someone’s living costs | support, provide for, keep, look after | She supported two children on one salary. |
| keep records or a list up to date | keep, update, manage, run, administer | The club keeps a list of all its members. |
Maintain as “keep it going”: keep, sustain, keep up
This is the commonest sense: something already exists at a certain level, and you stop it from dropping. Maintain sounds formal here, which is why it fills reports and policy documents. In ordinary writing, keep nearly always does the work.
- keep: the everyday choice. Keep your voice down. Keep the room at 20 degrees. Keep in touch.
- keep up: continue something that takes effort. Keep up the good work. He couldn’t keep up the payments.
- sustain: keep something going over a long time, usually against difficulty. The team could not sustain that level of play for ninety minutes.
- hold: keep a position, a level or someone’s attention. Prices held steady through the summer. The speaker held the room for an hour.
- continue: carry on with an activity. The two firms continued their partnership after the merger.
- stay (with an adjective): often the neatest rewrite. Stay calm for maintain your composure; stay in touch for maintain contact.
One difference is worth knowing. Maintain and keep are neutral about effort; sustain suggests that the thing would fall away if you stopped pushing. “We maintained our lead” reports a fact. “We sustained our lead” hints that it was hard.
Maintain as “don’t let it be lost”: preserve, retain, protect
Use these when the point is that something valuable could disappear.
- preserve: keep something in its original state. The treaty was meant to preserve peace in the region.
- retain: keep hold of what you already have. The company retained most of its staff after the sale.
- protect and safeguard: keep something safe from harm. New rules safeguard customers’ savings.
- conserve: use carefully so that it lasts, mostly for resources. Showers conserve water better than baths.
Preserve and conserve are not interchangeable. You preserve a building, a tradition or a friendship (it stays as it is); you conserve energy, water or strength (you use less of it).
Maintain a standard or a rule: uphold, stick to, observe
When what you maintain is a principle, a law or a level of quality, uphold is the exact word: uphold the law, uphold a tradition, uphold high standards. It is used only for abstract things of this kind, so “uphold a garden” or “uphold a speed” is wrong.
Less formal choices are stick to and keep to (stick to the rules, keep to the schedule), observe (observe the speed limit) and honour, spelled honor in American English (honour an agreement).
Maintain equipment and property: service, look after, keep up
For cars, machines, buildings, gardens and software, maintain means doing the regular work that keeps a thing running.
- service: check and repair a machine on a schedule. Have the car serviced once a year.
- look after and take care of: the plain, friendly choices. Whoever looks after the building has done a good job.
- keep up: for houses and gardens. It is a big house to keep up.
- repair, fix, overhaul: narrower than maintain, because they mean putting right what has already gone wrong. An overhaul is a complete one.
- keep in good condition, keep in working order: longer, but clear in instructions.
The noun maintenance has its own set: upkeep (the upkeep of an old house), servicing, care and repairs. Upkeep often carries the idea of cost.
Maintain as “say firmly”: insist, claim, assert, contend
In he maintains that he never signed the form, the verb has nothing to do with keeping things in order. It means to go on saying something is true, usually when other people doubt it. The synonyms differ in how much they suggest about that doubt.
| Word | What it adds | Example |
|---|---|---|
| insist | repeats it firmly, against opposition | She insists that she locked the door. |
| claim | the writer is not vouching for it | The firm claims the delay was not its fault. |
| assert | states it with confidence; formal | The report asserts that costs will fall. |
| contend | puts it forward in an argument or dispute | Lawyers contend that the contract was never valid. |
| argue | gives reasons for it | Some historians argue that the war was avoidable. |
| hold | states a settled opinion; formal | The school holds that every child can learn to read music. |
| stand by | refuses to take back an earlier statement | The minister stands by her remarks. |
In essays, maintain, argue and contend are useful for reporting an author’s position without agreeing with it. Claim goes a step further and can sound sceptical, so use it only when you mean to keep your distance.
Maintain a family: support, provide for
The financial sense is a little old-fashioned in everyday speech, though it survives in legal language. Say support (he supports his parents), provide for (enough to provide for a family of four) or, informally, keep (it costs a lot to keep a teenager). In British English, maintenance is also the money a parent pays after a separation; American English calls it child support or, for a former spouse, alimony.
Common phrases with maintain, and what to say instead
| Phrase | Plainer or sharper wording |
|---|---|
| maintain eye contact | keep eye contact, hold someone’s gaze |
| maintain contact | keep in touch, stay in touch |
| maintain your composure | stay calm, keep your cool, keep your composure |
| maintain a healthy weight | stay at a healthy weight, keep your weight steady |
| maintain order | keep order, keep the peace |
| maintain a relationship | keep up a friendship, stay close, look after a relationship |
| maintain momentum | keep up the momentum, keep things moving |
| maintain high standards | uphold high standards, keep standards high |
| maintain a balance | keep a balance (strike a balance means to find one, not to keep it) |
| maintain records | keep records, keep the records up to date |
| maintain silence | stay silent, keep quiet |
Maintained on a resume
Maintained is honest but passive: it tells an employer that nothing got worse. Where you can, choose a verb that shows what the upkeep involved, and add the scale.
- Managed or ran: Managed a 40-vehicle delivery fleet.
- Serviced or repaired: Serviced packaging machines on a weekly schedule.
- Updated or kept: Kept the customer database accurate and up to date.
- Administered or operated: Administered the office network for 60 users.
- Upheld: Upheld food-safety standards across three kitchens.
- Sustained: Sustained a 98% on-time delivery rate for two years. Use it only with a figure you can back up.
- Built or strengthened, for relationships: Strengthened relationships with twelve key suppliers.
There is more on this kind of wording in synonyms for managed on your resume.
Words that look like synonyms but are not
- Remain: it has no object. A person remains calm, but maintains or keeps their composure. “She remained her composure” is wrong.
- Obtain and attain: these mean to get or to reach something. Maintain is about keeping what you already have.
- Contain: to hold inside or to hold back (contain the fire), not to keep in good order.
- Ensure: to make certain something happens. You maintain a standard so as to ensure quality; the two are not the same step. See another word for ensure.
- Improve and develop: these raise the level; maintain holds it. “We maintained and improved the site” names two different things. Compare another word for improve and another word for develop.
Opposites of maintain
For keeping a level: drop, lose, let slip, abandon, give up, discontinue. For upkeep: neglect, let go, run down (the house had been neglected for years). For a claim: deny, retract, withdraw, take back.
Practice: choose the better word
- The garage will (uphold / service) the van on Friday.
- Judges are expected to (uphold / look after) the law.
- Turn off the lights to (preserve / conserve) electricity.
- The witness (insists / sustains) that the car was blue.
- Try to (stay / retain) calm during the interview.
- The museum works to (preserve / contend) letters from the 1800s.
- Few runners can (sustain / assert) that pace for a full marathon.
- He works two jobs to (support / service) his family.
Answers: 1 service; 2 uphold; 3 conserve; 4 insists; 5 stay; 6 preserve; 7 sustain; 8 support.
Quick answers
What is a better word for maintain?
Keep is the plain choice. Sustain fits a level held over time, preserve fits something that could be lost, uphold fits rules and standards, and service or look after fits equipment.
What is a formal synonym for maintain?
Sustain, preserve, retain and uphold are all formal. Maintain is already a formal word, so in most writing the improvement is to go plainer, not grander.
What is another word for maintain in the sense of claim?
Insist, assert, contend, argue and hold. Claim works too, but it suggests the writer has doubts.
What is another word for maintenance?
Upkeep, servicing, care and repairs for property and machines; preservation for keeping something as it is.
Is sustain the same as maintain?
Close, but sustain implies effort over a long period and is not used for upkeep. You maintain a car; you sustain growth, interest or a pace.
For more overused words and their replacements, browse the list of synonyms.