suspense
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Related to suspense: suspense account
keep (one) in suspense
To cause one to remain in a state of anxious apprehension. Well, don't keep me in suspense—tell me what happened next! The TV show kept audiences in suspense with a big cliffhanger at the end of the season finale.
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2015 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.
keep someone in (a state of) suspense
to make someone wait anxiously for something. Tell us what happened. Don't keep us in a state of suspense. Don't keep me in suspense!
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs. © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
the suspense is killing me
I can’t wait to learn the outcome. This hyperbole of impatience is a twentieth-century expression of an age-old idea. “Suspense in news is torture, speak them out,” wrote John Milton (Samson Agonistes, 1671). Jonathan Swift claimed, “It is a miserable thing to live in suspense; it is the life of a spider” (Thoughts on Various Subjects, 1714), and F. E. Smedley wrote, “Suspense, that toothache of the mind” (Frank Fairlegh, 1850).
The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer Copyright © 2013 by Christine Ammer