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

ByteDance introduced timeline-based prompting so filmmakers can actually pick specific moments and tweak them, and improved the understanding of camera direction, physics, lighting and fluidity of action.

From Los Angeles Times • Jul. 3, 2026

Further, when a member of the court makes an error in an opinion, they can quietly tweak it in-house to correct it.

From Slate • Jul. 2, 2026

Obviously, we talk about what we could improve and what we could tweak.

From Barron's • Jun. 29, 2026

The "minor policy tweak" came into effect on Thursday, it said.

From BBC • Jun. 25, 2026

I suspect it will result in a tweak in my cocktail.

From "Challenger Deep" by Neal Shusterman

Related Words

• tease
• twist