fine-tune

verb

fine-tuned; fine-tuning; fine-tunes
Synonyms of fine-tunenext

transitive verb

1
a
: to adjust precisely so as to bring to the highest level of performance or effectiveness
fine-tune the engine of a race car
fine-tune the format
b
: to improve through minor alteration or revision
fine-tune the temperature of the room
fine-tune a policy
2
: to stabilize (an economy) by small-scale fiscal and monetary manipulations

Examples of fine-tune in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Just as email helped Adams fine-tune the strip’s workplace theme, the emerging dot-com boom helped make Dilbert an ideal comic for the mid-Nineties. Jon Blistein, Rolling Stone, 13 Jan. 2026 Basham said when the city was fine-tuning its policy around electric bike and scooter use, there was a conscious effort to not exclude people who depend on those kinds of devices for recreational enjoyment. Matthew Adams, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 12 Jan. 2026 Later, the Act was expanded and fine-tuned with the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968. Leslie Hoyle Guerra, The Orlando Sentinel, 10 Jan. 2026 The county has worked for months with UCSD and Scripps researchers to absorb the protocols created by local researchers, gradually fine-tuning models so that the data that the county’s process creates matches with what has already been collected and published by the research effort. Paul Sisson, San Diego Union-Tribune, 8 Jan. 2026 See All Example Sentences for fine-tune

Word History

First Known Use

1959, in the meaning defined at sense 1a

Time Traveler
The first known use of fine-tune was in 1959

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Cite this Entry

“Fine-tune.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fine-tune. Accessed 29 Jan. 2026.

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