Maintain | Vocabulary

- [Instructor] Ahoy, Wordsmiths, hold fast because this word is about keeping it steady as she goes. Maintain is the featured word. Oh, I maintain a steady course, Wordsmiths. Maintain, it's a verb. It means to keep something the same, to provide support for something. So to maintain a course if you're steering a vessel, is to keep us going in the same direction. You might also see it as maintenance, which is the noun form. Now this word comes to us through French, but ultimately from Latin. Maintain comes from manu tenere, to hold in the hand. And so man means hand, and ten or tain means hold. When you're maintaining something, you're putting your hands on it. You're holding onto it to keep it steady in some way, although you don't always have to literally put your hands on something to maintain it. Let's take those two word parts, main and ten or tain and see what we can make out of them. I'll put on some music and you and I will go and think about some related words. 10 seconds, here we go. (upbeat contemporary music) Alright, here's what I've got. Manuscript, which is a handwritten document, right, scribe means to write. Manu means hand handwritten thing. Abstain, ab means from, and tain means to hold. To abstain from something is to hold back. I'm abstaining from tackle football because I bruise easily. Manipulate, this word means to handle or control something or someone as though you're controlling it with your hands. It can be both literal and figurative. You can manipulate a device by pushing its buttons, or you can manipulate a person by trying to control them in a sneaky way. Now let us push the button labeled example sentences to see what maintain looks like in context. To maintain the balance in her garden soil, Vanessa added eggshells to her compost pile. So she's trying to keep things steady in the compost pile. She's trying to make sure the mix of nutrients is right to make good soil. But let's also talk about maintenance, which usually has a mechanical meaning like keeping a vehicle in good condition. Ah, that's a fine in motorbike. An antique motorcycle requires constant maintenance. You have to be cleaning and oiling and working on it all the time. That's maintenance, keeping it in steady working condition. Keep your minds in steady working condition, Wordsmiths. Hands on the tiller, eyes on the horizon. Loft the main sail, other boat things. You can learn anything, David out.