Meaning & use
high maintenance person
Last updated
Meaning
nouncountableinformaldisapproving
Someone who needs a lot of attention, effort, reassurance or special treatment from the people around them, and is hard to please.
Grammar: Has a plural: high maintenance people. Usually used after an or as a description with be.
Patterns
- a high maintenance person to deal with
- be a high maintenance person
He is a high maintenance person who expects a reply within minutes.
Living with a high maintenance person can be exhausting.
I don't think I'm a high maintenance person, but I do like my coffee made a certain way.
Word forms
| plural | high maintenance people |
|---|
Common combinations
- a very high maintenance person
- She is a very high maintenance person, so planning trips with her takes ages.
- date a high maintenance person
- He admitted he could never date a high maintenance person.
- deal with a high maintenance person
- Dealing with a high maintenance person at work wears you down.
- labelled high maintenance
- She was labelled high maintenance for asking for one small change.
Synonyms and how they differ
- demanding
- Demanding is the more neutral adjective and can describe tasks as well as people, while high maintenance is more informal and personal.
- needy
- Needy points to emotional dependence, whereas high maintenance can also mean fussy about comfort, appearance or service.
- fussy
- Fussy is about being hard to satisfy over small details and does not suggest the constant effort that high maintenance does.
- diva
- Diva is more theatrical and suggests dramatic behavior, usually in someone who thinks they are important.
Opposites
Word family
- maintenance noun
- the work of keeping something in good condition
- maintain verb
- to keep something in good condition or at the same level
- high-maintenance adjective
- needing a lot of care, attention or effort
- low-maintenance adjective
- needing little care or effort
Practice
My cousin sends back every dish, changes hotel rooms twice, and wants constant updates. She is definitely a ____.
Choose one answer.
A high maintenance person needs a lot of attention and is hard to please. Easygoing is the opposite, and the others do not describe demanding behavior.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “high maintenance person”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.