high-maintenance

adjective

high-main·​te·​nance ˈhī-ˈmānt-nən(t)s How to pronounce high-maintenance (audio)
-ˈmān-tə-nən(t)s
1
: requiring a large amount of care or maintenance
The high-maintenance "Dracula" orchid constantly needs high levels of humidity and cooler temperatures.Victoria Colliver
They can't even afford the high-maintenance hairdos, let alone the Adidas sweats.Gerri Hirshey
2
of a person : tending to cause problems or demand attention : extremely sensitive, demanding, or temperamental
Playing the victim gets you absolutely nowhere, and it only makes you seem tiring and high-maintenance to your boss.Cosmopolitan
Matthäus is the greatest German sweeper since Beckenbauer, but he's high-maintenance. At various times in his career, he has accused a ref of taking bribes, scrapped with a teammate and, three years ago, ripped his universally beloved German teammate Jürgen Klinsmann in a tell-all book.Jeff Bradley

Examples of high-maintenance in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
But this is kind of like a high-maintenance process. Bon Appétit, 9 Oct. 2024 Looks like Pascal, The Golden Bachelorette's high-maintenance Frenchman, is going to have to find someone else to do his laundry. Kristen Baldwin, EW.com, 4 Oct. 2024 Say goodbye to your high-maintenance litter pan and invest in the Litter-Robot 4 today. Bridget Degnan, Peoplemag, 7 Sep. 2024 Any anxiety Poles may have had last winter about Williams potentially having high-maintenance tendencies or a sense of entitlement after being a college megastar in the era of multimillion-dollar name-image-likeness (NIL) opportunities have long since been obliterated. Dan Wiederer, Chicago Tribune, 28 July 2024 See all Example Sentences for high-maintenance 

Word History

First Known Use

1916, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Time Traveler
The first known use of high-maintenance was in 1916

Dictionary Entries Near high-maintenance

Cite this Entry

“High-maintenance.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/high-maintenance. Accessed 22 Nov. 2024.

Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
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