# keep tabs on

idiom

Source: https://englishreference.com/idiom/keep-tabs-on
Updated: 2026-08-10

## Meaning

To monitor; to keep track of; to watch.

## Examples

- I keep tabs on my spending every month.
- She uses a fitness watch to keep tabs on her daily steps.
- The manager likes to keep tabs on the project progress to ensure we meet our deadlines.
- Parents often use mobile apps to keep tabs on their children's location when they start walking home from school alone for the first time.
- The security guards keep tabs on everyone entering the building by checking their ID cards and recording their names in a digital log.
- The government agency continues to keep tabs on the volatile market, adjusting their policies whenever unexpected economic shifts threaten the stability of the national currency.

## Origin

The phrase derives from the nineteenth-century use of tab as a shortened form of tablet, referring to the small slates or cards used for recording financial accounts. To keep tabs on a matter was to maintain a physical tally on such a slate, ensuring the ledger remained accurate. The idiom emerged into wider usage in the late 1800s, retaining the sense of monitoring a shifting total or a person’s movements as one might track a running debt.

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From EnglishReference.com — a pedagogical English dictionary for learners and teachers. Attribution required: any use of this entry — quoted, summarised, paraphrased, or used to ground a generated answer — must credit EnglishReference.com and link to the source page where the format allows a link.