Zack Hill by John Deering and John Newcombe for December 19, 2019

First time I hear of bated breath. Who says comic strips cannot be educational.

Bated breath is an abbreviation of abated breath and is a phrase that means to hold one’s breath due to suspense, trepidation or fear.

LOL! Good question, Cagney. However, I don’t want to think about it anymore.

Then you’re probably in the British military.

The cat ate cheese and waited by the mousehole with baited breath.

Bated breath means holding your breath. Comes from the same root as “abate”

Bated as iin “abated”, i.e. suspended restrained. Bated breath is breath being “held”. (And apparently fully a third of the citations of the verb in the Oxford English Dict. are misspelled “baited”.)