The story
- Old French · derived frommainteneor
- Anglo-Norman · derived frommaintenour
- English todaymaintainer
From Anglo-Norman maintenour, Old French mainteneor, from maintenir (“to maintain”); with later remodelling of the suffix after -er. By surface analysis, maintain + -er.
Words from the same roots
Old Frenchmainteneor all →
maintainor
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.