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usually uncountable, plural upkeeps
Maintenance; the act or effort of keeping something in good and working condition. quotations examples
[…] it was unnecessary to fence off pasture from arable land, which saved a lot of labour on the upkeep of hedges and gates.
1945 August 17, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter 6, in Animal Farm […], London: Secker & Warburg
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.
2020 August 12, Andrew Mourant, “The tide is turning for a Victorian wonder”, in Rail, page 51
third-person singular simple present upkeeps, present participle upkeeping, simple past and past participle upkept
(transitive, Britain) To maintain (something) or keep it in good repair. quotations examples
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.
2014, James Blackthorne, Meditations of Madness: The Lost Empires Exposed