Bible Dictionaries
Maintain

King James Dictionary

MAINTA'IN, L. manus and teneo.

1. To hold, preserve or keep in any particular state or condition to support to sustain not to suffer to fail or decline as, to maintain a certain degree of heat in a furnace to maintain the digestive process or powers of the stomach to maintain the fertility of soil to maintain present character or reputation.
2. To hold to keep not to lose or surrender as, to maintain a place or post.
3. To continue not to suffer to cease as, to maintain a conversation.
4. To keep up to uphold to support the expense of as, to maintain state or equipage.

What maintains one vice would bring up two children.

5. To support with food, clothing and other conveniences as, to maintain a family by trade or labor.
6. To support by intellectual powers, or by force of reason as, to maintain an argument.
7. To support to defend to vindicate to justify to prove to be just as, to maintain one's right or cause.
8. To support by assertion or argument to affirm.

In tragedy and satire, I maintain that this age and the last have excelled the ancients.

Bibliography Information
Entry for 'Maintain'. King James Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/​dictionaries/​eng/​kjd/​m/maintain.html.