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

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Etymology

Origin of tweak

First recorded in 1595–1605; akin to twitch

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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

Here’s how to tweak your investment strategy in response.

From Barron's ● Oct. 15, 2026

He also said we could apply as a microschool next year and even suggested a tweak to the language in our tuition policy should we decide to do that.

From Salon ● Oct. 4, 2026

Say there’s an amendment to the city’s General Plan, which guides land use decisions, or a tweak to one of the neighborhood community plans that oversee development in areas like Hollywood or Boyle Heights.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 1, 2026

"There is a constant discussion and I think that they are on it and understand that we can tweak it a little bit here or there."

From BBC ● Sep. 14, 2026

Then I tweak the drawings and we upload again.

From "The Tenth Mistake of Hank Hooperman" by Gennifer Choldenko

Automakers are leaning on appearance tweaks and special features to freshen up their lineups, rolling out retro throwbacks, special-edition paint packages and niche trim levels to keep buyers interested.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 29, 2026

Such direct relationships, he stressed, are the core asset of modern journalism, even as tech platforms continually insert themselves between news outlets and their readers and viewers through algorithm tweaks.

From Salon ● Sep. 22, 2026

But the look and tone of “60 Minutes” remained intact, with only a few minor tweaks to the graphics.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 14, 2026

Few disagreed, and slight tweaks have been made in an attempt to limit matches finishing at the crack of dawn.

From BBC ● Sep. 11, 2026

And maybe one of those tweaks would’ve sent her over the edge.

From "When Dimple Met Rishi" by Sandhya Menon

Restaurants in the island’s six towns, from the Sweet Life Cafe in Oak Bluffs to the Fish House in Edgartown, tweaked menus, recipes and how they cook.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 4, 2026

From time to time the disguised funding scheme would be tweaked to "assist with continued concealment" and "reduce the likelihood of difficult questions being asked".

From BBC ● Sep. 29, 2026

Hugging Face is a leading platform for accessing open-weight AI, meaning the underlying numerical parameters can be downloaded and tweaked by users.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 28, 2026

Oracle lived up to high expectations on Thursday as the cloud and software giant tweaked its forecasts higher and sent an upbeat signal about future business.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 10, 2026

She reached out and tweaked my cheek the way my grandmother would and said, “What’s up, cutie?”

From "Stargirl" by Jerry Spinelli

Needing 68 from 75 balls, England were cruising towards a target of 322 until Buttler retired hurt on 67 after tweaking a hamstring.

From BBC ● Sep. 24, 2026

Smaller improvements — like adjusting the amount of oil used to fry chicken and tweaking other fryer settings — would go a long way across its more than 46,000 restaurants worldwide, executives said.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 23, 2026

In the meantime, there’s a lot of unwieldy comic commotion involving a missing corpse, a tweaking, naked Dwight and enough insipid TV sibling bickering to clog the airwaves for a decade.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 23, 2026

Some experts mentioned other technological solutions to help with public health: namely, the tweaking of algorithms to make it so the most inflammatory accounts aren’t always rewarded.

From Slate ● Aug. 26, 2026

This often leads to some "tweaking" of the tuning in real performances, away from equal temperament.

From "Understanding Basic Music Theory" by Catherine Schmidt-Jones and Russel Jones

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Related Words

• tease
• twist

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