tweener

English

Etymology

tween +‎ -er.

Pronunciation

• Audio (AU)

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Noun

tweener (plural tweeners)

1. (informal) A tweenager.

   Synonyms: tween, preteen

   • 2004 April 26, Sharon Waxman, “Cracks in Hollywood's Glass-Slipper Genre”, in The New York Times‎^[1]:

     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.

2. (informal) A person or thing that is between two categories, classes or age groups.
   • 1987, Paul Pearsall, Superimmunity: Master Your Emotions & Improve Your Personal Health, New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Book Company, →ISBN, page 53:

     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.”

   • 1992 January 21, Leslie Wayne, “Thrift Office's Eager Terminator”, in The New York Times‎^[2], section D, page 1:

     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.

   • 2014 February 21, Lawrence Ulrich, “Get Your $50,000 Hatchback Here”, in The New York Times‎^[3]:

     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.

   • 2016 March 10, Neil Genzlinger, “Review: In ‘About Scout,’ a Young Woman Searches for Her Sister”, in The New York Times‎^[4]:

     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.

   1. (sports, chiefly basketball) A person who plays at two positions, especially if not good enough at either to be restricted to it.
      • 2015 June 22, Mark Murphy, “NBA Draft: Celtics” Jae Crowder heads up NBA trend for ex-tweeners”, in Boston Herald‎^[5]:

        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.

      • 2023 August 24, Fred Jeter, “VUU’s Anderson draws national ‘Watch’”, in Richmond Free Press‎^[6]:

        “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.

   2. (computing) A computing device that is smaller than a traditional laptop, but larger than a PDA.
      • 1999 January 4, Cathy Gagne, “Flashback ’98 Tech review: Handheld Dandies”, in Computerworld, volume 33, number 1, Framingham, Mass.: Computerworld, Inc., →ISSN, page 106:

        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.

   3. (boxing) A boxer in various newcomer weight classes whose names often contain super, light or junior.
      • 2023, Rod Honecker, Brick City Grudge Match: Tony Zale and Rocky Graziano Battle in Newark, 1948, Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, →ISBN, page 146:

        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.

   4. (professional wrestling, slang) A professional wrestler who is neutral or morally ambiguous; neither a face nor a heel, or showing no favoritism to either allegiance.
      • 2006, Thomas Hackett, Slaphappy: Pride, Prejudice, and Professional Wrestling, New York, NY: HarperCollins, →ISBN, page 21:

        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.

      • 2015 May, David Bixenspan, “The Real World Champion”, in Fighting Spirit Magazine, number 118, Bournemouth: Uncooked Media Ltd, →ISSN, page 53:

        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.

   5. (film) A film that falls between two genres or audiences (and thus may not be easily marketed).
      • 2004 February 3, Peter Biskind, “Ambitious Miramax Gets Lost in ‘Tweener’ Land”, in Los Angeles Times‎^[7]:

        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.”

3. (sports, chiefly tennis) A shot that is hit between the legs.
   • 2023 July 4, Simon Cambers, “Sabalenka and Jabeur delight the crowds with a tweener and touch”, in The Guardian‎^[8]:

     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.

4. (cinematography) A person, machine, or piece of software that performs tweening.
   • 2000 May, Steve Anzovin, Raf Anzovin, “Reviews: Carrara 1.0”, in MacAddict, volume 5, number 5, Brisbane, CA: Imagine Media, Inc., →ISSN, page 57:

     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).

References

• “tweener”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• “tweener”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.