upkeep

English

Etymology

up +‎ keep

Noun

upkeep (usually uncountable, plural upkeeps)

1. Maintenance; the act or effort of keeping something in good and working condition.

   I would enjoy having a swimming pool, but I don't want to deal with the upkeep.

   • 1943 November – 1944 February (date written; published 1945 August 17), George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], Animal Farm […], London: Secker & Warburg, published May 1962, →OCLC:

     […] it was unnecessary to fence off pasture from arable land, which saved a lot of labour on the upkeep of hedges and gates.

   • 2020 August 12, Andrew Mourant, “The tide is turning for a Victorian wonder”, in Rail, page 51:

     The story of upkeep has been never-ending. Between 1997-2000, a major programme of maintenance entailed replacing superstructure timbers - 50 main rail beams were replaced with greenheart, along with a similar number of edge beams.

Translations

maintenance; the act or effort of keeping something in good repair

• Bulgarian: поддръжка (bg) f (poddrǎžka)
• Danish: vedligehold n
• Dutch: onderhoud (nl) n
• Finnish: huolto (fi), kunnossapito (fi), ylläpito (fi)
• French: entretien (fr) m
• Galician: mantemento (gl) m
• German: Wartung (de), Unterhalt (de)
• Italian: manutenzione (it) f
• Latin: tuitiō f
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: vedlikehold n

  Nynorsk: vedlikehald n

• Portuguese: manutenção (pt) f
• Russian: обслу́живание (ru) n (obslúživanije), содержа́ние (ru) n (soderžánije)
• Slovak: údržba f
• Spanish: mantenimiento (es) m
• Swedish: underhåll (sv)

Verb

upkeep (third-person singular simple present upkeeps, present participle upkeeping, simple past and past participle upkept)

1. (transitive, British) To maintain (something) or keep it in good repair.
   • 2014, James Blackthorne, Meditations of Madness: The Lost Empires Exposed‎^[1]:

     As for the city's buildings, it mostly resembled a town of white spires and cobblestone streets lined with flowerbeds that were upkept by magical means.

   Do you know how to upkeep a boat?

Translations

to maintain (something) or keep it in good repair

• Bulgarian: поддържам (bg) (poddǎržam)
• Danish: vedligeholde (da)
• Finnish: huoltaa (fi), pitää kunnossa
• Galician: manter (gl)
• Italian: manutenere
• Russian: содержа́ть в исправности (soderžátʹ v ispravnosti), проводить техническое обслуживание (provoditʹ texničeskoje obsluživanije)
• Spanish: mantener (es)
• Swedish: sköta om, ta hand om (sv), underhålla (sv)

Anagrams

• keep up