What is the difference between abate and bate? How are they used differently? Do they both mean the same thing?
(from the Free Dictionary)
The definition of abate is 'to reduce in amount, degree, or intensity; lessen'
The definition of bate is 'to lessen the force or intensity of; moderate'
Isn't that the same thing?
I know that bate is used in the phrase 'with bated breath'. Is it only commonly used in this phrase and rarely used elsewhere?
What's the difference?
abate is related to bate etymologically.
Bate
Origin
late Middle English: from Old French batre 'to beat' (see also batter1).
Abate
Origin
Middle English (in the legal sense): from Old French abatre 'to fell', from a- (from Latin ad 'to, at') + batre 'to beat' (from Latin battere, battuere 'to beat').
The word picture for bate is a hawk beating its wings against the air to fly. This word picture extends metaphorically to its noun definition: "foul mood".
Bate
VERB
Falconry (Of a hawk) beat the wings in agitation and flutter off the perch:
the hawks bated and immediately the breeze got in their feathers
NOUN
British informal (dated) An angry mood:
he got into a stinking bate
"Bate" obtains the meaning of "reducing the intensity of a force" as Shakespeare used it in Merchant of Venice. In each of the uses below, bate can reflect the meaning "subdue", although in some of them it could also reflect the original word picture of "beat" or "flutter".
"With bated breath and whispering humbleness,"
"His tedious measures with the unbated fire"
"These griefs and losses have so bated me,"
"And bid the main flood bate his usual height;"
By adding the prefix "a" (a phonetic variant of "ad") to the base of bate we get the picture of beating "at" something or someone.
Abate
VERB
Make (something) less intense:
nothing abated his crusading zeal
Again, abate obtains the meaning of "reducing the intensity of a harmful force" from the outcome of beating that harmful force back. In fact, "subdue" is the primary connotation of abate.
This is the clear meaning in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, when BASSANIO says,
"You would abate the strength of your displeasure."
So in the end, the common etymology creates common meaning across the board, although bate is rarely used now, except for the phrase "bated breath."
There is, of course, the old joke about the cat who ate the cheese and waited for the mouse with "baited" breath.
But back to the actual question...
As I'm sure we all know, a huge fraction of our common English phrases originated in Shakespeare. Shakespeare was quite happy to twist and modify words for best effect, and alliteration was a favoured tool ("From forth the fatal loins of these two foes" etc.). So, in the lines quoted above, he chose "bated" as opposed to abated, because it falls better on the ear. In doing so, I suspect he began the use of the phrase "bated breath".
Given that abated is the older form, and that there is a common tendency to shorten words, it seems obvious to me that bate and bated are simply contractions of abate and abated. So, I think one could reasonably argue that bated is an example of aphesis and should actually be written as 'bated, in the same way that, "until", becomes 'til.
Scot M gave an exhaustive answer. Here is the simple version: You are correct, they mean basically the same. However, you also guessed correctly that "bate" is nowadays (at least in America) used almost exclusively in "with bated breath", which means "in intense anticipation" figuratively or literally so excited as to refrain even from breathing. As "bate" is so rare, Americans sometimes misspell this idiom as "with baited breath", an amusing eggcorn (what is it baited with—chocolate? To catch what or whom?)
