tweep

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iːp

Etymology 1

Onomatopoeic.

Noun

tweep (plural tweeps)

1. A chirp or beep.
   • 1995, John Wynne, The Listener's Guide to Audio Books: Reviews, Recommendations, and Listings for More Than 2,000 Titles, Fireside, →ISBN, page 321:

     The readers are Star Trek cast members, and the sound is enhanced with authentic, Enterprise-sounding beeps and tweeps.

   • 2008, Eric W. Bragg, The Midnight Blade of Sonic Honey, Oyster Moon Press, →ISBN, page 106:

     Many of the neighboring birds had already begun their preliminary chirps, sending out those quirky little twits and tweeps that announce their presence […]

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:tweep.

Verb

tweep (third-person singular simple present tweeps, present participle tweeping, simple past and past participle tweeped)

1. To chirp or beep.
   • 1996, Lauraine Snelling, A New Day Rising‎^[1], Bethany House Publishers, →ISBN:

     A bird tweeped and twittered on a thistle by the side of the trail.

   • 1999, Laura Kalpakian, Steps and Exes: A Novel of Family, Bard, →ISBN, page 103:

     No ubiquitous telephones, no fax machines or computers burping and tweeping and chirping their electronic chirps.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:tweep.

Etymology 2

From TWEP, acronym of terminate with extreme prejudice, a US military intelligence and CIA euphemism for "kill, assassinate" that was first used in the 1960s.

Verb

tweep (third-person singular simple present tweeps, present participle tweeping, simple past and past participle tweeped)

1. (US, intelligence, euphemistic) To kill; to assassinate.
   • 1997, William B. Breuer, Vendetta!: Fidel Castro and the Kennedy Brothers, John Wiley, →ISBN:

     Robert Maheu, tough, astute, dynamic, was the perfect professional to implement the CIA scheme to tweep Fidel Castro.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:tweep.

Etymology 3

Blend of Twitter +‎ peep (“person”).

Noun

tweep (plural tweeps or tweeple)

1. (Internet, slang) A user of the Twitter microblogging service.

   Synonyms: tweeter, twitterer

   • 2011, David Javerbaum (writing as God), The Last Testament: A Memoir, Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 305:

     As astute tweeps will observe, I myself only follow one other person, the one thou callest "Justin Bieber"; […]

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:tweep.
2. (slang) A Twitter employee.
   • 2022 November 4, Kate Conger, Ryan Mac, Mike Isaac, quoting Esther Crawford, “Confusion and Frustration Reign as Elon Musk Cuts Half of Twitter’s Staff”, in The New York Times‎^[2], →ISSN:

     “I recognize this is a crazy moment where Tweeps are losing access and the layoff is in progress,” she wrote on Slack, adding a broken heart emoji and a link to a video conferencing room, according to messages viewed by The Times.

Anagrams

• pewet, wepte