keep tabs on

See tab (“tablet or slate used for keeping a record of accounts”).

keep tabs on (third-person singular simple present keeps tabs on, present participle keeping tabs on, simple past and past participle kept tabs on)

1. (idiomatic) To monitor; to keep track of; to watch.

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

   The police kept close tabs on him during the holidays.

   • 1910, Stewart Edward White, The Rules of the Game ch. 85:

     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.

   • 1919, Lucy Maud Montgomery, Rainbow Valley, ch. 16:

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

   • 2010, Andrew Lee Butters, "Why the U.S. Is Back on the Road to Damascus," Time:

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

• Many adjectives can modify tabs, such as loose, tight, closer, closest, strict, daily, continuous, discreet.