tweak

present singular third person tweaks · participle present tweaking · participle past tweaked · past tweaked

1. transitiveTo pinch and pull with a sudden jerk and twist; to twitch.

   to tweak the nose.

2. informaltransitiveTo adjust slightly; to fine-tune.

   If we tweak the colors towards blue, it will look more natural.

   2 more examples

   Economics is a messy discipline: too fluid to be a science, too rigorous to be an art. Perhaps it is fitting that economists’ most-used metric, gross domestic product (GDP), is a tangle too.[…]But as a foundation for analysis it is highly subjective: it rests on difficult decisions about what counts as a territory, what counts as output and how to value it. Indeed, economists are still tweaking it.

   2013 August 3, “Boundary problems”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847

   Yet on January 10th, only weeks before the charter was due to come into force, the prime minister said his government was tweaking the draft.

   2017 January 14, “Thailand's new king rejects the army's proposed constitution”, in The Economist

3. transitiveTo tease, to annoy; to get under the skin of (someone, typically so as to irritate them, or by extension to enamor, frighten, etc).

   “Russia needs leadership and he knows how to tweak people.” He grinned, “He made a convert of me,” chuckling. “I wanted to lead him by the hand, now I follow him like a puppy dog.”

   2006, Clarence Rockey, Carlisle Trace President of the People, Lulu.com, →ISBN, page 171

   3 more examples

   Oh, he loved to tweak people and say things like "Hiya sweetums" to me because that was not exactly de rigueur in front of a bunch of strong feminists. He had this enormous sense of humor. I never knew what he was going to say.

   1995, Alida Brill, Feminist Press, A Rising Public Voice: Women in Politics Worldwide, Feminist Press at CUNY, page 177

   I know what kinds of intervals and melodies tweak people—I know how to make people's skin crawl, how to make them shiver. I can't say it works on all listeners. There are some people, such as overly trained composers and theorists ...

   2003, Ann McCutchan, The Muse that Sings: Composers Speak about the Creative Process, Oxford University Press on Demand, →ISBN, page 92

   But I know he likes to tweak people. For a while he was giving Colette, the receptionist, a hard time, until she learned to ignore him. But that ability that lets him see how to tweak people makes him a superb salesman.

   2011, Sara J. Henry, Learning to Swim: A Novel, Crown, →ISBN, page 183

4. USintransitiveslangTo abuse methamphetamines, especially crystal meth.
5. USintransitiveslangTo exhibit extreme nervousness, evasiveness when confronted by authorities, compulsiveness, erratic motion, excitability, etc, due to or mimicking the symptoms of methamphetamine abuse.
6. broadlyintransitiveslangTo be extremely confused; to have no clue what is happening.

   Am I tweaking or does 2020 feel like 6 months ago?

   4 more examples

   If you didn't think that was a good halftime show you're actually tweaking

   2021 February 7, @iiKlemm, Twitter, archived from the original on 10 Jan 2024

   Some of yall gonna think im tweaking but FRONTIER>>>>>>HUENEME

   2021 June 16, @j0syell, Twitter, archived from the original on 10 Jan 2024

   Am I tweaking or did twitter just go offline for 2.5 seconds🤔😅

   2023 October 11, @Jus4president, Twitter, archived from the original on 10 Jan 2024

   are these the same color or am i just tweaking

   2024 January 2, @postneptune, Twitter, archived from the original on 10 Jan 2024

   Synonyms: trip

7. uncommonengineeringFrom a catapult, to strike a target with a missile.

plural tweaks

1. A sharp pinch or jerk; a twist or twitch.

   a tweak of the nose

2. A slight adjustment or modification.

   He is running so many tweaks it is hard to remember how it looked originally.

3. Trouble; distress; tweag.
4. obsoleteslangA prostitute.

   Thence to Bautree, as I came there, From the bushes near the lane, there Rush'd a tweak in gesture flanting With a leering eye, and wanton: But my flesh I did subdue it Fearing lest my purse should rue it.

   1638, Richard Brathwait, edited by Thomas Gent, Barnabae Itinerarium; or Drunken Barnaby's four journeys to the north of England: In Latin and English metre, published 1852, page 113

5. slangMethamphetamine.
6. slangA single inhalation of cocaine.
7. computingAn additional input to a block cipher, used in conjunction with the key to select the permutation computed by the cipher.