What does "tweener" mean?
A tweenager.
Tweener
noun, slang
noun, slang ·Moderate ·College level
Meaning at a glance
- Primary sense: A tweenager.
- Grammar: tweener is listed as noun, slang.
- Usage evidence: 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.
How to use "tweener"
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- Compare nearby synonyms to make sure "tweener" carries the exact meaning, tone, and strength you need.
- Use the example sentence as a context check. If your sentence uses the word differently, confirm that the grammar still fits.
Meaning check
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- Does it match the intended tone rather than only the dictionary definition?
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- Is there enough surrounding context to prevent ambiguity?
Source and review context
This entry combines structured lexical data with WordToolSet review checks. Definitions, examples, synonyms, and usage notes may come from different source tables, so the page is designed to show evidence from more than one angle before you rely on "tweener" in a final draft.
If a word has several senses, prefer the sense that matches your sentence's grammar and surrounding context. A correct definition can still be the wrong choice when the sentence needs a different register, emphasis, or level of specificity.
Before you rely on this definition
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Compare nearby meanings
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Definition decision workflow
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3. Confirm with context
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Final meaning check
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When the definition, synonym evidence, and example context point in the same direction, the word is usually a safer choice. When they conflict, revise the sentence or choose a clearer alternative.
Definitions
Noun
- 1 A tweenager. informal
"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 A person or thing that is between two categories, classes or age groups. informal
"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.”"
- 3 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. informal
"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."
- 4 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. informal
"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."
- 5 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. informal
"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."
Show 4 more definitions
- 6 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. informal, slang
"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."
- 7 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). informal
"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.”"
- 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."
- 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)."
Example
"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."
Common questions
How do you use "tweener" in a sentence?
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.
Etymology
From 'tween + -er.