tweak English
Noun
( en noun)
A sharp pinch or jerk; a twist or twitch.
- a tweak of the nose .
Trouble; distress; tweag.
A slight adjustment or modification.
- He is running so many tweaks it is hard to remember how it looked originally.
(obsolete, slang) A prostitute.
* 1638 , , Barnabae Itinerarium: or Drunken Barnaby's four journeys to the north of England : In latin and english metre , Thomas Gent (1852), page 113:
- […] Thence to Bautree, as I came there, / From the bushes near the lane, there / Rush'd a tweak in gesture flanting / With a leering eye, and wanton : / But my flesh I did subdue it / Fearing lest my purse should rue it.
Verb
( en verb)
To pinch and pull with a sudden jerk and twist; to twitch.
-
(informal) To adjust slightly; to fine-tune.
-
* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-03, volume=408, issue=8847, magazine=(The Economist)
, title= Boundary problems
, passage=Economics is a messy discipline: too fluid to be a science, too rigorous to be an art. Perhaps it is fitting that economists’ most-used metric, gross domestic product (GDP), is a tangle too.
To twit or tease.
(intransitive, US, slang) To abuse methamphetamines, especially crystal meth.
(intransitive, US, slang) To exhibit symptoms of methamphetamine abuse, such as extreme nervousness, compulsiveness, erratic motion, excitability; possibly a blend of twitch and freak.
(intransitive, US, slang) To exhibit extreme nervousness, evasiveness when confronted by law enforcement or other authority (e.g., customs agents, border patrol, teacher, etc.), mimicking methamphetamine abuse symptoms.
Derived terms
* (drug abuser) tweaker, (US)
* (drug abuse) tweaking
References
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shear Verb
To cut, originally with a sword or other bladed weapon, now usually with shears, or as if using shears.
* 1819 , Walter Scott, Ivanhoe :
- So trenchant was the Templar’s weapon, that it shore asunder, as it had been a willow twig, the tough and plaited handle of the mace, which the ill-fated Saxon reared to parry the blow, and, descending on his head, levelled him with the earth.
* Shakespeare
- the golden tresses were shorn away
To remove the fleece from a sheep etc by clipping.
(physics) To deform because of shearing forces.
(Scotland) To reap, as grain.
- (Jamieson)
(figurative) To deprive of property; to fleece.
Noun
( en noun)
a cutting tool similar to scissors, but often larger
* Dryden
- short of the wool, and naked from the shear
the act of shearing, or something removed by shearing
* Youatt
- After the second shearing, he is a two-shear' ram; at the expiration of another year, he is a three-' shear ram; the name always taking its date from the time of shearing.
(physics) a force that produces a shearing strain
(geology) The response of a rock to deformation usually by compressive stress, resulting in particular textures.
Derived terms
* megashear
* shearer
Adjective
(head)
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