"keep tabs on" meaning in English

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        "4": "tablet or slate used for keeping a record of accounts"
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      "name": "m"
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  "etymology_text": "See tab (“tablet or slate used for keeping a record of accounts”).",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "keeps tabs on",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "keeping tabs on",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
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    },
    {
      "form": "kept tabs on",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
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    },
    {
      "form": "kept tabs on",
      "tags": [
        "past"
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      "args": {
        "1": "keep<,,kept> tabs on"
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      "name": "en-verb"
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
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      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "If you are careful to keep tabs on your finances, you should be able to stay within a budget."
        },
        {
          "text": "The police kept close tabs on him during the holidays."
        },
        {
          "ref": "1910, Stewart Edward White, chapter 85, in The Rules of the Game",
          "text": "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.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1919, Lucy Maud Montgomery, chapter 16, in Rainbow Valley",
          "text": "I'll catch him—I'll trip him up—I'll keep tabs on his arguments.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010, Andrew Lee Butters, “Why the U.S. Is Back on the Road to Damascus”, in Time",
          "text": "Syria's much feared state-security apparatus keeps close tabs on everyone entering and leaving the embassy.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "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",
          "text": "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.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To monitor; to keep track of; to watch."
      ],
      "id": "en-keep_tabs_on-en-verb-3HdRt2a7",
      "links": [
        [
          "monitor",
          "monitor"
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          "track",
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          "watch"
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        "(idiomatic) To monitor; to keep track of; to watch."
      ],
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      "tags": [
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  ],
  "word": "keep tabs on"
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        "2": "tab",
        "3": "",
        "4": "tablet or slate used for keeping a record of accounts"
      },
      "expansion": "tab (“tablet or slate used for keeping a record of accounts”)",
      "name": "m"
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  ],
  "etymology_text": "See tab (“tablet or slate used for keeping a record of accounts”).",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "keeps tabs on",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
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    },
    {
      "form": "keeping tabs on",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
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    },
    {
      "form": "kept tabs on",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
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    },
    {
      "form": "kept tabs on",
      "tags": [
        "past"
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      "args": {
        "1": "keep<,,kept> tabs on"
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      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "If you are careful to keep tabs on your finances, you should be able to stay within a budget."
        },
        {
          "text": "The police kept close tabs on him during the holidays."
        },
        {
          "ref": "1910, Stewart Edward White, chapter 85, in The Rules of the Game",
          "text": "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.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1919, Lucy Maud Montgomery, chapter 16, in Rainbow Valley",
          "text": "I'll catch him—I'll trip him up—I'll keep tabs on his arguments.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010, Andrew Lee Butters, “Why the U.S. Is Back on the Road to Damascus”, in Time",
          "text": "Syria's much feared state-security apparatus keeps close tabs on everyone entering and leaving the embassy.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "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",
          "text": "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.",
          "type": "quotation"
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      "glosses": [
        "To monitor; to keep track of; to watch."
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        "(idiomatic) To monitor; to keep track of; to watch."
      ],
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      "tags": [
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  "word": "keep tabs on"
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