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

The next step in the evolution, he said, is granting AI autonomy to tweak machine settings and operations based on its own recommendations.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 5, 2026

I weighed what Nolan chose to protect, tweak and abandon in his own version and concluded that he wanted to make an action-tragedy about societal decline.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 4, 2026

Co-owner Behdad Eghbali said Chelsea would "tweak" their model and add experience to what he still believes is a strong core of young players including Cole Palmer, Moises Caicedo and Levi Colwill.

From BBC ● Jul. 30, 2026

“Okay, okay. I need to tweak the formula. Maybe lose the Dr Pepper flavoring. That might’ve thrown things off. Or not. It’s a possibility. Sort of. I should’ve written the formula down somewhere....”

From "The Smartest Kid in the Universe" by Chris Grabenstein

It is also looking at tweaks to the different categories of COEs.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 28, 2026

What tweaks can you make to your spending that will free up $77 a week?

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 28, 2026

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

In each new iteration of Super Smash Bros., the characters get upgraded—they receive new powers, new moves, or just tweaks to their classic designs.

From "Kwame Crashes the Underworld" by Craig Kofi Farmer

He is only a tweaked hamstring away from playing in a Test at Lord's on Thursday.

From BBC ● Aug. 23, 2026

Some have tweaked their portfolios, shifting from overweight positions in large-cap tech stocks to a more neutral stance.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 23, 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

When concerns about jet-fuel supplies hit markets in the spring, U.S. and European refineries tweaked their yields to produce more of the fuel, which helped put those worries to rest.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 18, 2026

The man tweaked his son’s nose, and David rolled his eyes.

From "Uglies" by Scott Westerfeld

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

PhD student James Metcalf, 24, said the experts were tweaking the telescopes to follow the passage of the Sun.

From BBC ● Aug. 12, 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

He was immensely proud of Lin’s success with Ligaroti, but he enjoyed tweaking his son, and he was good at it.

From "Seabiscuit: An American Legend" by Laura Hillenbrand

Related Words

• tease
• twist