stake out

1. 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

But to stake out an admittedly outrageous devil’s-advocate position, at least it would have been honest.

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The court was told then defendants continued to make claims about Ms Wandelt's identity, of the McCanns' involvement in their daughter's disappearance - including in a WhatsApp group that Mrs McCann's number was added to - and made further plans to visit in February and "stake out" the following year's annual vigil and harass the couple.

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I use these terms—extraneous, germane, regular order—for the purposes of persuading Democratic elites that they should stake out different grounds for fighting, not because I think Democrats themselves should use those terms on the hustings.

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It was why one of the first things I did that Friday morning, one day before the RunningLane championships, was stake out a good location within John Hunt Park for our tent.

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“Peacemaker” isn’t covering any ground that many other movies and TV shows didn’t stake out first.

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Related Words

• assess 
• canvass 
• check 
• check out 
• estimate 
• evaluate 
• examine 
• inspect 
• look over 
• observe 
• overlook 
• oversee 
• review 
• scan 
• supervise