alimony [E17th] Today alimony means ‘provision for a husband or wife after divorce’ (what is usually called maintenance in Britain). In the early 17th century, it could also simply mean ‘nourishment or means of subsistence’. It comes from Latin alere ‘nourish’, which is the root of words such as *adolescent, alimentary [E17th] and coalesce [M16th] ‘grow together’.