tweak

American  

[tweek] / twik /

verb (used with object)

• tweaks,
  present (3rd person singular)
• tweaked,
  past participle,  past
• tweaking
  present participle

1. to pinch and pull with a jerk and twist.

   She playfully tweaked his ear.

   I tweaked my bowtie again, but it stayed stubbornly crooked.

2. to pull or pinch the nose of, especially gently.

   He leaned over the stroller and tweaked the baby affectionately.

3. to make a minor adjustment to.

   Bad hardware can't be fixed by tweaking the software.

4. to annoy, tease, or make fun of.

   How much of her “dumb blonde” image was actually a brilliant performer tweaking the stuffed shirts?

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verb (used without object)

• tweaks,
  present (3rd person singular)
• tweaked,
  past participle,  past
• tweaking
  present participle

1. Slang.

   1. to use methamphetamine, cocaine, or other stimulant drugs.

      He'll try to avoid taking a drug test if he's been tweaking and toking.

   2. to engage in wildly excited or agitated behavior under the influence of such drugs (usually followed byout ).

      If I'd seen someone else acting this way I would have thought they were tweaking on meth.

noun

• tweaks
  plural

1. an act or instance of tweaking; a sharp, twisting pull or jerk.

   "Thought it was you," she said, greeting him with a tweak on the nose.

2. a minor adjustment.

   Here are 12 simple tweaks to speed up your computer.

verb phrase

1. tweak out

   1. to extract by pinching and pulling with a jerk, as with tweezers.

      In a twinkling she had tweaked out a dozen hairs and put them in an evidence bag.

   2. to remove (defects or unwanted features) by means of a minor adjustment.

      You have a couple of bugs to tweak out from your website, but you’re on the right track.

   3. to effect (an improvement) by means of minor adjustments.

      They were able to tweak out some pretty hefty performance improvements to the sound system.

   4. to optimize in this way.

      My operating system isn’t tweaked out the way I like, but it's running, stable enough, and ready for use.

   5. Slang. to engage in wildly excited or agitated behavior under the influence of methamphetamine, cocaine, or other stimulant drugs.

      She grabbed a knife and waved it around while tweaking out on crystal meth.

      He showed up shirtless and barefoot, tweaked out on cocaine.

   6. Slang. to make or become wildly excited or agitated; freak (someone) out.

      I decided not to tell my kids what I’d done so they wouldn't tweak out about it.

tweak British  

/ twiːk /

verb

1. to twist, jerk, or pinch with a sharp or sudden movement

   to tweak someone's nose

2. slang motor racing to tune (a car or engine) for peak performance

3. informal to make a minor alteration

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noun

1. an instance of tweaking

2. informal a minor alteration

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• tweaker
  noun
• tweaky
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• tweaks
  plural

Participles

• tweaking
  present
• tweaked
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• tweak
  simple
• tweaks
  simple
• have tweaked
  perfect
• has tweaked
  perfect
• am tweaking
  progressive
• are tweaking
  progressive
• is tweaking
  progressive
• have been tweaking
  perfect progressive
• has been tweaking
  perfect progressive

Past

• tweaked
  simple
• had tweaked
  perfect
• was tweaking
  progressive
• were tweaking
  progressive
• had been tweaking
  perfect progressive

Future

• will tweak
  simple
• will have tweaked
  perfect
• will be tweaking
  progressive
• will have been tweaking
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of tweak

First recorded in 1595–1605; akin to twitch

Explanation

When you tweak something, you pinch it or twist it. You may have a doting aunt who thinks you're still two years old and can't resist tweaking your nose every time she sees you. Tweak also means to adjust or fine-tune. When you finish writing a paper, it's a good idea to go back through one last time, to tweak it and make sure it's absolutely perfect. So when you tweak something or give something a tweak, you're making little adjustments, you’re not rewriting your paper or tossing it out and starting all over again.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

tweak tweaks tweaked tweaking

Businesses can tweak it to operate it entirely on their own devices and create AI assistants that manage schedules, draft messages and organize files.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 12, 2026

If they detected any aberrations, they’d tweak the machines after the fact.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 5, 2026

Previous chairs could persuade a colleague against dissenting with a tweak to the statement—a hawkish phrase here, a dovish nod there—or by implying that action was likelier at a later meeting.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 29, 2026

Alicia Denby, a sociologist at Manchester Metropolitan University, argues the show's tweak is reflective of a broader societal change where "women may now be more likely to approach someone first".

From BBC ● Jul. 25, 2026

She’d hacked into the Kinloch computer and every so often would tweak some of its code.

From "City Spies" by James Ponti

Aviation Minister Keir Mather said the project would test "small tweaks to flight paths over the Atlantic" which could help make flying cleaner.

From BBC ● Aug. 18, 2026

Now those players are back, and it’s all about making smaller tweaks along a solid line.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 14, 2026

“It was so high-pitched, it sounded like you were driving a Honda,” Boniol said, adding that Ram has since made tweaks to improve the Hurricane’s tone.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 13, 2026

The theory suggests teams often enjoy a short-term improvement after appointing a new head coach, helped by renewed motivation, tactical tweaks and a psychological reset.

From BBC ● Aug. 4, 2026

“I made a few more tweaks last night,” Dari said.

From "The Science of Breakable Things" by Tae Keller

But this was a part of the game Guardiola tweaked often last season, struggling to land on something he was completely happy with.

From BBC ● Aug. 14, 2026

The new category came as part of a bevy of added or tweaked awards and nominating rules that will debut at next year’s ceremony on Feb. 7.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 29, 2026

In such ruses, fraudsters fool people with malicious software, phishing emails or tweaked digital addresses.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 21, 2026

Japan's parliament tweaked the imperial succession law on Friday but maintained the bar on women emperors -- despite surveys suggesting wide public support for the idea.

From Barron's ● Jul. 17, 2026

Matthias watched her go until Methuselah tweaked his ear.

From "Redwall" by Brian Jacques

Tech writer Alex Heath, who uses A.I. in a back-and-forth process with his own tweaking, explained recently that Pangram judged his text to be 100 percent human.

From Slate ● Aug. 18, 2026

Slightly tweaking the prompt to say “in the USA,” however, yielded a list of products labeled as made in the United States.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 30, 2026

Already, McDaniel has done some tinkering and fine-tuning, tweaking Herbert’s footwork out of the shotgun formation to allow him to get the ball out of his hands a fraction of a second earlier.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 23, 2026

Here, Madonna is liberated from Universal’s script notes or editing maneuvers, free from tweaking anyone’s performance to feel more like the real thing.

From Salon ● Jul. 8, 2026

The tweaking was painless, and the effect subtle.

From "Scythe" by Neal Shusterman

Related Words

• tease
• twist