What is the difference between sustain and maintain

Things that are sustained require continuous, foreground effort. The one learning a language! Learn about premium features.

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Featured answer. Think of this in terms of levels: Maintain is to keep it at a certain level. For example, "To maintain my grades, I study every night.

For example, "Planting trees, using less water, and turning off electronics when you don't use them, are ways to sustain the environment. Like memory: "There's nothing he can do to retain his deteriorating memory. Also, sustaining as positive, maintaining as neutral, and retaining as negative might also help.

Maintain sounds more active. It has more the idea of someone making an effort. Retain just means that the shop has not lost its atmosphere. Kept would work in both sentences. In fact, I'd probably say kept personally. Last edited: Feb 21, Maintain - to keep in the original state or as close as possible. Sustain - to prevent from ceasing to exist Retain - to keep as rhitagawr said. Maintained and retained work in the first OP sentence. Although I'd say retained in the second OP sentence out of the choices on offer, I wouldn't regard maintained as a mistake.