maintaining

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle of maintain.

   The company is maintaining its market lead despite fierce competition.

   Maintaining the old steam engine required parts no longer in production.

   Note

   Behind the -ing form stands a verb with several jobs. You can be maintaining a lead or a tradition (keeping it up), maintaining that a claim is true (asserting it), or maintaining an engine (keeping it in working order). The assertive use takes a that-clause: she kept maintaining that she was innocent. An obsolete sense, backing someone up, has dropped away. As a gerund it keeps its object, unlike the noun form, which needs of.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The act of keeping something in proper condition or working order.

   The maintaining of public roads falls to the local government.

   Careful maintaining of the equipment prevented costly breakdowns.

   Similarupkeep, servicing, care

   Oppositeneglect

   Note

   A verbal noun that behaves like a mass noun: it takes the and an of-phrase (the maintaining of public roads) and has no plural. That is how to tell it apart from the gerund, which keeps the verb's direct object: maintaining the roads. Maintenance names the same work as a settled noun, while maintaining keeps the feel of an act in progress.

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