stakeout
the surveillance of a location by the police, as in anticipation of a crime or the arrival of a wanted person.
the place from which such surveillance is carried out.
something that is bounded or separated by or as if by stakes, especially property, territory, or the like that one identifies or claims as one's own.
Origin of stakeout
1Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
How to use stakeout in a sentence
Paul has consistently used Benghazi as a device to stake out high ground on foreign policy.
Do you stake out in Brooklyn and look at what people are wearing?
'Girls' Costume Designer Jenn Rogien Talks Season 3 Style | Erin Cunningham | January 12, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTSo is he serious or is he just trying to stake out a politically extreme position?
We pulled plain-clothes cops in to stake out different neighborhoods.
The two candidates have yet to stake out a major battleground issue for the primaries.
Pioneers claimed the right to go in and stake out homesteads, but the soldiers of our government would not allow them to do so.
The Boy Land Boomer | Ralph BonehillThen calculate the correct sun time of VI A.M. by your standard watch and stake out the morning hours.
How Girls Can Help Their Country | Juliette LowStake the trap solid, driving stake out of sight, and set the trap about ten inches in front of the hole.
Science of Trapping | Elmer Harry KrepsHer 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.
In to the Yukon | William Seymour EdwardsSet trap, a No. 1, in an inch of water square under the log and stake out in deep water as far as possible.
Mink Trapping | A. R. (Arthur Robert) Harding
British Dictionary definitions for stakeout
/ (ˈsteɪkaʊt) slang, mainly US and Canadian /
a police surveillance of an area, house, or criminal suspect
an area or house kept under such surveillance
(tr, adverb) to keep under surveillance
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Other Idioms and Phrases with stakeout
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]
The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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