Also 7 tweake; β. 7–8 (9 dial.) tweag, 8 tweague. [Of obscure origin: cf. TWICK v.]
1. trans. To seize and pull sharply with a twisting movement; to pull at with a jerk; to twitch, wring, pluck; esp. to pull (a person) by the nose (or a person’s nose) as a mark of contempt or insult; † to press (the lips) together so as to pinch.
α. 1601. Holland, Pliny, XI. xxiv. I. 324. These Spiders hunt also after the yong Lizards:… they catch hold and tweake both their lips together, and so bite and pinch them.
1602. Shaks., Ham., II. ii. 601. Who calles me Villaine?… Tweakes me by th’ Nose? giues me the Lye i’ th’ Throate…?
1663. Butler, Hud., I. II. 974. To rouze him … He tweak’d his Nose, with gentle Thump Knock’d on his Breast.
1748. Smollett, R. Random, xxvi. He seized me by the nose, which he tweaked so unmercifully, that I roared with anguish.
1795. Wolcot (P. Pindar), Hair Powder, Wks. 1812, III. 305. With hot pincers tweak each nose and ear!
1816. Scott, Old Mort., iv. I will tweak thy proboscis or nose.
1826. F. Reynolds, Life & Times, I. 111. [He] tweaked our crabbed oppressor by the nose.
1858. P. J. Bailey, The Age, 148.
| It’s well for you there’s no Apollo near, | |
| Or you’d have been a sign to all beholders; | |
| For he’d have tweaked your head clean off your shoulders. |
1913. Blackw. Mag., June, 796/1. She tweaked the coiffure of her much-enduring parent into position.
β. 1685. Crowne, Sir C. Nice, III. Dram. Wks. 1874, III. 296. I’ll not only libel him, but tweag him by the nose, kick him, cudgel him.
1738. Common Sense, II. 106. They are all tweag’d into a Degree of Insensibility, which may incapacitate them for smelling a Fox.
1755. J. Shebbeare, Lydia (1769), II. 139. Sweetwood stretched forth his hand and tweaged his nose.
1841. Hartshorne, Salopia Antiqua, 602.
1876. Mid-Yorks. Gloss., Tweag..., to tweak.
† 2. fig. (See quot., and cf. TWEAK sb.1 2 a.) Obs.
1722. Bailey, To Tweag, to Tweak (tweken, Du. to pinch), to put into a Fret or Perplexity. [Not in Johnson.]
3. slang. To hit with a missile from a catapult. Cf. TWEAKER.
1898. Kipling, Stalky, in Windsor Mag., Dec., 35. Corkran, through the roof, scientifically ‘tweaked’ a frisky heifer on the nose.
Hence Tweaked ppl. a., Tweaking vbl. sb.
1609. B. Jonson, Sil. Wom., IV. v. Good, Sir John, leaue tweaking, you’ll blow his nose off.
1894. H. Spencer, in Life Mrs. Lynn Linton, xxi. (1901), 311. To return to the tweaking of the nose above indicated.
1900. Daily News, 15 Nov., 6/1. This tweaked-up eyebrow … carries the idea of evil to the modern audience.
