subs. (old colloquial).—1. A jerk, twinge, pinch: as verb = to twitch, pull, or snatch: usually in phrase TO TWEAK ONE’S NOSE (GROSE). TWEAKER (Felsted School: obsolete) = a catapult.
c. 1420. PALLADIUS, On Husbondrie [E.E.T.S.], 150.
| Voide leves puld to be … | |
| With fyngers lightly TWYK hem from the tree. |
1632. JONSON, The Magnetic Lady, iii. 4. Now TWEAK him BY THE NOSE. Hard, harder yet.
1632. R. BROME, The Northern Lasse, ii. 5. Bobs o’ the Lips, TWEAKS by the Nose, Cuffs o’ the Ear, and Trenchers at my Head in abundance.
1663. BUTLER, Hudibras, I. ii.
| Quoth he, | |
| TWEAKING his nose, ‘You are, great sir, | |
| A self-denying conqueror.’ |
1724. SWIFT, Riddles, 25. No passion so weak but gives it a TWEAK.
1887. L. WINGFIELD, The Lovely Wang, ii. Her old toes TWEAKED with corns.
2. (old).—A dilemma (PHILLIPS, 1706): also as verb = to perplex (BAILEY, 1731).
3. (venery).—(a) A wanton, a whore: see TART; and (b) a wencher: see MUTTON-MONGER.
1617. MIDDLETON and ROWLEY, A Faire Quarrell, iv. 4. Your TWEAKS are like your mermaids, they have sweet voices to entice the passengers.
c. 1650. BRATHWAITE, Barnaby’s Journal (1723), 101.
| From the bushes near the lane, there | |
| Rush’d a TWEAKE in gesture flanting, | |
| With a leering eye, and wanton. | |
| Ibid. (1658), The Honest Ghost, ‘His Farewell to Poetry,’ 110. | |
| Where now I’m more perplext than can be told, | |
| If my TWEAKE squeeze from mee a peece of gold; | |
| For to my Lure she is so kindely brought, | |
| I looke that she for nought should play the nought. |
See TWEAGUE.
