A hook, witness, or animal is baited ("lured, enticed, tempted"). Breath is bated ("moderated").
Examples:
- "A former top aide to the Archbishop of Westminster was 'threatened and baited like an animal' by the Daily Mail, a jury was told today."
(Chris Tryhorn, "Aide 'Baited Like an Animal' by Daily Mail," The Guardian, February 19, 2008) - "To those waiting with bated breath for that favorite media catch phrase, the U-turn, I have only one thing to say: You turn if you want to--the lady's not for turning."
(British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, 1980)
Usage Notes:
- "The word baited is sometimes incorrectly substituted for the etymologically correct but unfamiliar word bated ('abated; suspended') in the expression bated breath."
("bait," The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, fourth edition, 2000) - "What's the basis of bated, which we never hear in the present tense? It is a clip of abate, from the Old French abattre, 'to beat down,' and now it means 'to moderate, subside, reduce, ebb.' In connection with breathing, it means 'shorten' or 'hold.' When you abate your breath, you hold it in anticipation of some breathtaking event.
"The coiner was Shakespeare in his 1596 Merchant of Venice, in which Shylock says to Antonio, 'Shall I bend low and in a bondman's key,/With bated breath and whispering humbleness,/Say this:/Fair sir, you spit on me on Wednesday last?'"
(William Safire, "Bated Breath," May 5, 2002)
Practice:
(a) I'm hoping with crossed fingers and _____ breath that gas prices will soon go down.
(b) A line, with a _____ hook, was tied to the leg of a goose.
