keep tabs on
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
Monitor or track someone's activities
Literally: keep small pieces of paper for records
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
ICL parent, Fujitsu Ltd, had no hand in development, but is keeping tabs on its sibling's progress.
Although so little was heard from them, those who kept tabs on them were convinced that they were slowly fading away.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “keep tabs on” mean?
Monitor or track someone's activities Literally: keep small pieces of paper for records
Is “keep tabs on” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.