# tweak
## English
### Etymology

From Middle English twikken, from Old English twiccian (“to pluck”), from Proto-West Germanic *twekkōn (“to fasten; clamp; pinch”). Related to twitch. The drug-related sense may be a blend of twitch and freak.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /twiːk/
* Audio (General Australian):(file)
* Rhymes: -iːk

### Verb

tweak (third-person singular simple present tweaks, present participle tweaking, simple past and past participle tweaked)
* (transitive) To pinch and pull with a sudden jerk and twist; to twitch.
    to tweak the nose.
* (transitive, informal) To adjust slightly; to fine-tune.
    If we tweak the colors towards blue, it will look more natural.
** 2013 August 3, “Boundary problems”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847: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.
** 2017 January 14, “Thailand's new king rejects the army's proposed constitution”, in The Economist‎: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.
* (transitive) To tease, to annoy; to get under the skin of (someone, typically so as to irritate them, or by extension to enamor, frighten, etc).
** 1995, Alida Brill, Feminist Press, A Rising Public Voice: Women in Politics Worldwide, Feminist Press at CUNY (→ISBN), page 177:
    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.
** 2003, Ann McCutchan, The Muse that Sings: Composers Speak about the Creative Process, Oxford University Press on Demand, →ISBN, page 92: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 ...
** 2006, Clarence Rockey, Carlisle Trace President of the People, Lulu.com, →ISBN, page 171:“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.”
** 2011, Sara J. Henry, Learning to Swim: A Novel, Crown, →ISBN, page 183: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.
* (intransitive, US, slang) To abuse methamphetamines, especially crystal meth.
* (intransitive, US, slang) To exhibit extreme nervousness, evasiveness when confronted by authorities, compulsiveness, erratic motion, excitability, etc, due to or mimicking the symptoms of methamphetamine abuse.
* (intransitive, slang, by extension) To be extremely confused; to have no clue what is happening.
    Synonym: (slang) trip
    Am I tweaking or does 2020 feel like 6 months ago?
** 2021 February 7, @iiKlemm, Twitter‎, archived from the original on 10 January 2024:If you didn't think that was a good halftime show you're actually tweaking
** 2021 June 16, @j0syell, Twitter‎, archived from the original on 10 January 2024:Some of yall gonna think im tweaking but FRONTIER>>>>>>HUENEME
** 2023 October 11, @Jus4president, Twitter‎, archived from the original on 10 January 2024:Am I tweaking or did twitter just go offline for 2.5 seconds🤔😅
** 2024 January 2, @postneptune, Twitter‎, archived from the original on 10 January 2024:are these the same color or am i just tweaking
* (military, weaponry, uncommon) From a catapult, to strike a target with a missile.

#### Derived terms

* (drug abuser): tweaker (US)
* (drug abuse): tweaking
* tweak on
* tweak out

#### Translations

    The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

### Noun

tweak (plural tweaks)
* A sharp pinch or jerk; a twist or twitch.
    a tweak of the nose
* A slight adjustment or modification.
    He is running so many tweaks it is hard to remember how it looked originally.
* Trouble; distress; tweag.
* (obsolete, slang) A prostitute.
** 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: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.
* (slang) Methamphetamine.
* (slang) A single inhalation of cocaine.
* (cryptography) An additional input to a block cipher, used in conjunction with the key to select the permutation computed by the cipher.

#### Derived terms

* tweak freak
* tweak of the thumb

#### Translations
### References

* Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, Springfield, Massachusetts, G.&C. Merriam Co., 1967