Definition of "with bated breath" []

• Used other than as an idiom: holding one's breath. (adverb)
• Eagerly; with great anticipation. (adverb)

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• "The crowned and mitered sentinels who stood on the jasper walls of heaven while cycles perished and millenniums died, left their golden towers, and like burning splinters of broken suns, sweeping from the azure peripheries to the diamond centers, they joined the heavenly perturbation and stood with bated breath and uncovered heads in the great congregation."
• "Evil-doing will be spoken of with bated breath and soft words even by policemen, when the evil-doer comes in a carriage, and with a title."
• "Dabbing at his streaming nose, Filch squinted unpleasantly at Harry who waited with bated breath for his sentence to fall."