upkeep

up +‎ keep

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.

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:

     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?

• keep up