A period of secret surveillance of a building or an area by police in order to observe someone's activities.
〈非正式〉（警方）监视期，监控期
they were looking for a vantage point for a stake-out
Example sentencesExamples
The raid was the culmination of weeks of hard intelligence-gathering, of stake-outs and investigation.
Agents began to fear that he might get wise to their stake-out so they moved him to a specially-created position at FBI headquarters.
Sheila had seen him several times before on previous stake-outs, and he wasn't a man to be easily reckoned with.
We were shooting a scene where Jimmy and I were on a stake-out.
As the investigation proceeds, Dormer's instincts eventually lead the team to a stake-out of the murder suspect and they give chase.
The police reacted on information they received and held a stake-out from 09: 00 outside the bank's premises, on the corners of Rissik, Loveday and Main streets.
He admitted he never took a police photographer or another officer along on his stake-outs, nor did he take a fingerprint expert to dust for print impressions at the apartment after the raid, saying it was not the practice to do so.
He was killing time as if he were on a stake-out for a client.
After a few establishing scenes, he is sent with his partner, John, on a stake-out to Cartersville, Georgia.
Wendy went to the foyer where Sheriff Marten and Deputy Craine had set up their stake-out.