stake out

Idioms and Phrases

Keep an area or person under police surveillance; also, assign someone to conduct such a surveillance. For example, They staked out the house , or He was staked out in the alley, watching for drug dealers . [c. 1940]

Example Sentences

Paul has consistently used Benghazi as a device to stake out high ground on foreign policy.

From The Daily Beast

Do you stake out in Brooklyn and look at what people are wearing?

From The Daily Beast

So is he serious or is he just trying to stake out a politically extreme position?

From The Daily Beast

We pulled plain-clothes cops in to stake out different neighborhoods.

From The Daily Beast

The two candidates have yet to stake out a major battleground issue for the primaries.

From The Daily Beast

Pioneers claimed the right to go in and stake out homesteads, but the soldiers of our government would not allow them to do so.

From Project Gutenberg

Then calculate the correct sun time of VI A.M. by your standard watch and stake out the morning hours.

From Project Gutenberg

Stake the trap solid, driving stake out of sight, and set the trap about ten inches in front of the hole.

From Project Gutenberg

Her oil fields are promising, a paraffine oil of high grade, yet no oil producer has made or can make any great stake out of them.

From Project Gutenberg

Set trap, a No. 1, in an inch of water square under the log and stake out in deep water as far as possible.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• care
• control
• examination
• inspection
• scrutiny
• supervision
• vigilance
• wiretap