Breathing that is subdued because of some emotion or difficulty.

‘Waiting with bated breath’ is holding your breath in anticipation.

Which is it – bated or baited? We have baited hooks and baited traps, but bated – what’s that? Bated doesn’t even seem to be a real word, where else do you hear it? Having said that, ‘baited breath’ makes little sense either. How can breath be baited? With worms?

There seems little guidance in contemporary texts. Search in Google and you’ll find about the same number of hits for ‘baited breath’ as ‘bated breath’.

If you thought this phrase was spelled ‘baited breath’ you are in good company. Even in one of the best selling books of all time, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (whose publisher could surely have afforded the services of a proof-reader), we have:

“The whole common room listened with baited breath.”