keep tabs on

present singular third person keeps tabs on · participle present keeping tabs on · participle past kept tabs on · past kept tabs on

1. idiomaticTo monitor; to keep track of; to watch.

   The police kept close tabs on him during the holidays.

   5 more examples

   If you are careful to keep tabs on your finances, you should be able to stay within a budget.

   He might have spent the hours camped under the trees of the more remote meadow, whence in the brilliant moonlight he could keep tabs on the trails.

   1910, Stewart Edward White, chapter 85, in The Rules of the Game

   I'll catch him—I'll trip him up—I'll keep tabs on his arguments.

   1919, Lucy Maud Montgomery, chapter 16, in Rainbow Valley

   Syria's much feared state-security apparatus keeps close tabs on everyone entering and leaving the embassy.

   2010, Andrew Lee Butters, “Why the U.S. Is Back on the Road to Damascus”, in Time

   Nadal, absent from the draw for the first time nearly two decades, said he won’t watch it all from afar, but he will be keeping tabs.

   2023 May 18, Christopher Clarey, “Even as He’s Out, Rafael Nadal Will Always Be a Part of the French Open”, in The New York Times