Meaning of with bated breath | Babel Free

Definitions

1. With reduced breath.
2. Eagerly; with great anticipation.
   idiomatic

Equivalents

Examples

“Shall I bend low, and in a bond-mans key / With bated breath, and whiſpring humbleneſſe, / Say this:”

“[…] with parted lips and bated breath the audience hung upon his words, taking no note of time, rapt in the ghastly fascinations of the tale.”

“Speak gently, Ο my son, speak gently now / With 'bated breath^([sic]), speak low.”

“The Professor, the master, the supreme chief, he who had to be addressed with bated breath sat with half-opened mouth and staring eyes, leaning forward in his chair, while in front of him the slight young woman shaking her mop of brown hair and wagging an admonitory forefinger, spoke to him as a father speaks to a refractory child.”

“We are waiting with bated breath for the release of the new version.”

“Thanks to the previous experience of the chief performers, to careful preparation and rehearsal, and to perfect weather conditions, they watched in breath-bated silence the spectacle of the huge bulk moving without a hitch into position over the temporary pier caps on which it settled as water ballast was admitted to the pontoons.”

CEFR level