upkeep

English

Etymology

From 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.

   Do you know how to upkeep a boat?

   • 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.

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