Bated breath

Means holding ones breathing in expectation of something important or dramatic and as such it is one of the most frequently miss-spelt phrases in the English language. Baited breath is simply and utterly wrong, yet Google will throw up almost as many instances of it as the correctly spelled bated breath. One would have thought that J.K. Rowling has made enough money to afford a proof-reader, because in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, she writes, “The whole common room listened with baited breath.” Bated is an abbreviation of abated and people have been bating or holding their breath since the 1400s. Thus, Shakespeare was not the first to use the expression in Merchant of Venice Act I, Scene III, “With bated breath and whispering humbleness.” Meanwhile, the ignorant and J.K. Rowling would have us bait our breath, presumably in the hope of catching something.