noun

suspense

suh-SPENS/səˈspens/

Anxious uncertainty about what will happen.

The players wait in suspense beside the leaning block tower.

Two men hold their breath over a precariously leaning wooden block tower: one has nearly extracted a lower block, while both anxiously watch the still-unresolved possibility of collapse.

Etymology

The pieces evoke “hanging up” or interruption. Anxious suspense seems to have developed from legal abeyance, perhaps through awaiting a decision or picturing the mind and thoughts as suspended.

In context

Lockdown learning with MR D2:57

have three full stops it's called ellipse and that tells the reader that's a bit of a cliffhanger it tells the reader that they've got to have that feeling of suspense

Fronted adverbials

More examples

The final chapter maintained the suspense.
She could not bear the suspense.
The pause added to their suspense.

Forms

suspense

Similar words

uncertainty: Need not include anxious anticipation.
anticipation: Can involve pleasant expectation rather than tension.