When the chambermaid was out on her errands and Cissie found a moment alone with Peter, she would tweak his ear or pull his cheek and provoke him to kiss her.

'Twill count for more than were I to tweak the Duke's nose.

irritate, provoke, sting, nettle, try the patience, pique, fret, rile, tweak the nose, chafe, gall; sting to the quick, wound to the quick, cut to the quick; aggrieve, affront, enchafe^, enrage, ruffle, sour the temper; give offense &c (resentment)

Through the trees the sunset sky was pale green melting into rose-colour, and the wicked little gnomes that twilight brings were tweaking the child's hair and jeering at her misfortunes.

He was a clever cunning man, and could always tweak the leg of pompous Head Master when he came to the room, and had beautiful ways of cheating him when he came to examinebetter than those of the other teachers.

A boy in Paris would tweak the Good Lord by the beard, by way of showing affection!

" The door opened and as Godfrey Mills came in, Mr. Taynton tweaked the paper out of Timmins's hand, and tore it up.

Billy remembered ruefully how a girl must dance first, last, and oftenest with her partner of the evening, and must eat supper with him besides, whether she likes or not; to tweak this rule means to insult the man beyond forgiveness.

Nick, standing beside her, whispered the name of the white-and-crimson-spotted butterfly flower, and she smiled her thanks, as the Chinese woman gave the boy's cap a pat, and tweaked the American ribbon bow which tied the queue of the little girl.

All through the reign of Abdul Hamid they persevered: Great Britain plucked his pillow from him, so to speak, by her protectorate of Egypt; Russia tweaked Eastern Rumelia from him; France deprived him of his hot-water bottle when she snatched at the Constantinople quays, and they all shook and slapped him when he went to war with Greece in 1896, and instantly deprived him of the territory he had won in Thessaly.

If I need to tweak my brothers for that, a little 'mea culpa'.