Tweak

How to spell tweak

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce tweak

What does tweak mean?

1. verbTo make a small, precise adjustment to something to improve it.
2. verbTo pinch and pull something with a sharp twisting motion.
3. nounA small adjustment or fine change made to something.

Tweak in a sentence

• verb

  The engineer needed to tweak the settings before the demo.

• verb

  The grandmother liked to tweak the toddler's chubby cheek.

• noun

  One final tweak to the budget brought the numbers into balance.

• verb

  A quick tweak to the recipe made the sauce far better.

• verb

  He gave the dog's ear a gentle tweak to get its attention.

• noun

  The software update was little more than a minor tweak.

Where does tweak come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Tweak is a native English word that traces back to the Old English verb twiccian, meaning 'to pluck' or 'to pull with a sudden sharp motion', and it belongs to the same Germanic family as 'twitch'. For centuries it carried only that physical sense of giving something a quick pinching pull, as you might do to a nose or an ear. The spelling settled with the 'ea' digraph that gives the long 'ee' sound, and the form 'tweak' is recorded from around the 1600s. The modern figurative sense, meaning to make a small precise adjustment to something such as a setting, a recipe, or a piece of code, grew popular in the twentieth century and is now its most common everyday use. The link to its older relative 'twitch' is a handy reminder that the word is about small, quick movements.

How the word is built

• tweak (single root; from Old English twiccian, to pluck or pull sharply)