Dictionary

tweener en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (Australia) audio

Etymology

From 'tween + -er.

Meanings

1. (informal) A tweenager.
   • But a half-dozen other movies geared toward the teenage and 'tween girl market – 'tweeners are girls from 8 to 12 years old – have failed to make more than a slight dent at the box office. 2004 April 26, Sharon Waxman, “Cracks in Hollywood's Glass-Slipper Genre”, in The New York Times:
2. (informal) A person or thing that is between two categories, classes or age groups.
   • So BMW has conjured a tweener — a roomier hatchback on platform shoes, with standard all-wheel drive — to attract customers who crave the 3 Series’ performance but need more utility to close the deal. 2014 February 21, Lawrence Ulrich, “Get Your $50,000 Hatchback Here”, in The New York Times:
   • I assigned one of my groups of heart patients the task of sorting a hundred art reproductions into three piles: beautiful, in between, and ugly. The five men sat down to begin work. The first few paintings were easily classified and group decision was rapid. As they progressed, however, one of the men commented, “I think this one is sort of a tweener.” 1987, Paul Pearsall, Superimmunity: Master Your Emotions & Improve Your Personal Health, New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Book Company, →ISBN, page 53:
   • Right now, Mr. Ryan's attention is on the "tweeners," savings and loans that are not obviously "brain dead," in regulatory parlance, and that at the same time are not clear winners – a group with $247 billion in assets. 1992 January 21, Leslie Wayne, “Thrift Office's Eager Terminator”, in The New York Times, section D, page 1:
   • Scout is old enough that her traveling dynamic with Sam isn’t the kid-adult one of “Paper Moon”; it’s more like a tweener with a crush on a college man. 2016 March 10, Neil Genzlinger, “Review: In ‘About Scout,’ a Young Woman Searches for Her Sister”, in The New York Times:
3. (informal) A person or thing that is between two categories, classes or age groups. ▸ A person who plays at two positions, especially if not good enough at either to be restricted to it.
   • “Isaac plays fast, never stops,” said Coach Parker, who labels him as “a tweener.” ¶ That means he’s big and strong enough to take care of business in the middle of the line, and quick and agile enough to cover the flanks and harass the quarterback. 2023 August 24, Fred Jeter, “VUU’s Anderson draws national ‘Watch’”, in Richmond Free Press, archived from the original on 28 Aug 2023:
   • Crowder was 6-foot-6 and 230 pounds, so those scouts naturally called him a tweener — a power forward in a wing player’s body. The Celtics forward admits to even going along with the stereotype. 2015 June 22, Mark Murphy, “NBA Draft: Celtics” Jae Crowder heads up NBA trend for ex-tweeners”, in Boston Herald:
4. (informal) A person or thing that is between two categories, classes or age groups. ▸ A computing device that is smaller than a traditional laptop, but larger than a PDA.
   • Trailing a little behind that in hype are the ’tweeners: the larger-format Windows CE Palm Pro portables. They’re not quite notebooks or subnotebooks, but they’re bigger than handhelds. 1999 January 4, Cathy Gagne, “Flashback ’98 Tech review: Handheld Dandies”, in Computerworld, volume 33, number 1, Framingham, Mass.: Computerworld, Inc., →ISSN, page 106:
5. (informal) A person or thing that is between two categories, classes or age groups. ▸ A boxer in various newcomer weight classes whose names often contain super, light or junior.
   • Undoubtedly, his record versus welterweights (147 pounds) is better than against full-blown middleweights (160 pounds). Being a tweener, Graziano probably would have campaigned as a junior middleweight (154 pounds) if he fought today. 2023, Rod Honecker, Brick City Grudge Match: Tony Zale and Rocky Graziano Battle in Newark, 1948, Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, →ISBN, page 146:
6. (informal, slang) A person or thing that is between two categories, classes or age groups. ▸ A professional wrestler who is neutral or morally ambiguous; neither a face nor a heel, or showing no favoritism to either allegiance.
   • When Crockett hit TBS, [Ric] Flair was a babyface within its territory, but a heel in the areas he visited as champion, so it compromised, and on TBS, he became a “tweener” who took on all comers. 2015 May, David Bixenspan, “The Real World Champion”, in Fighting Spirit Magazine, number 118, Bournemouth: Uncooked Media Ltd, →ISSN, page 53:
   • There are old-school wrestlers, submission wrestlers, hardcore wrestlers, hillbilly wrestlers, masked Mexican lucha libre wrestlers, shoot wrestlers, and wrestlers who just talk a lot and never actually wrestle. There are babyfaces (good guys), heels (bad guys), ’tweeners, and crossovers. 2006, Thomas Hackett, Slaphappy: Pride, Prejudice, and Professional Wrestling, New York, NY: HarperCollins, →ISBN, page 21:
7. (informal) A person or thing that is between two categories, classes or age groups. ▸ A film that falls between two genres or audiences (and thus may not be easily marketed).
   • With a less bankable cast, “Cold Mountain” became an $80-million-plus “tweener,” neither a blockbuster studio movie nor a modest “indiewood” production like “Lost in Translation.” 2004 February 3, Peter Biskind, “Ambitious Miramax Gets Lost in ‘Tweener’ Land”, in Los Angeles Times:
8. A shot that is hit between the legs.
   • The No 2 seed dismissed the challenge of the world No 82, Panna Udvardy of Hungary, in just over an hour with eight aces, 27 winners and even a tweener, treating the crowd to her power and athleticism on her return to Wimbledon after missing the event last year because of the ban on Russians and Belarusians competing. 2023 July 4, Simon Cambers, “Sabalenka and Jabeur delight the crowds with a tweener and touch”, in The Guardian:
9. A person, machine, or piece of software that performs tweening.
   • While it lacks true function curves for complete control of tweening, Carrara has several kinds of tweeners that allow decent control of object movement between keyframes (the Spline and Velocity Graph tweeners are most useful). 2000 May, Steve Anzovin, Raf Anzovin, “Reviews: Carrara 1.0”, in MacAddict, volume 5, number 5, Brisbane, CA: Imagine Media, Inc., →ISSN, page 57:

Forms

Synonyms

tween · preteen