Definition of "maintain" []

• To keep up or carry on; continue: maintain good relations. (verb-transitive)
• To keep in an existing state; preserve or retain: maintain one's composure. (verb-transitive)
• To keep in a condition of good repair or efficiency: maintain two cars. (verb-transitive)
• To provide for; support: maintain a family. (verb-transitive)
• To keep in existence; sustain: enough food to maintain life. (verb-transitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Proponents of the term maintain that it must be realistically acknowledged that those who have power and benefits from racial privilege in a racist society is primarily white, and that the term “person of color” is a better generic term for those who are racially underprivileged than “black person” as it includes ethnicities other than those strictly of African descent."
• "Proponents of the term maintain that it must be realistically acknowledged that those who have power and benefits from racial privilege in a racist society is primarily white"
• "What I did say and do maintain is that formerly all objects displaying specified complexity (and particularly that subset of symbolic information) were recognized in an uncontested way as obviously the artifacts of intelligent agency."