Stricken means badly affected by illness, grief or disaster. Grief-stricken, a stricken vessel, panic-stricken.
It is an old past participle of strike, kept alive mainly in compounds — grief-stricken, poverty-stricken, panic-stricken — where the thing that struck comes first. On its own it is formal and belongs to news reports about ships and regions.
1adjectivestrickenBadly affected by illness, grief or disaster.
“Aid workers brought food and water to the stricken villages after the earthquake.”
stricken is a state.
An older past participle of strike, from Old English strican, to stroke or move.
Proto-Germanic
*strikanaz
Proto-West Germanic
*strikan
Old English
stricen
Middle English
striken
English, today
stricken
From Middle English striken, ystriken, from Old English stricen, ġestricen, from Proto-West Germanic strikan, from Proto-Germanic strikanaz, past participle of Proto-Germanic strīkaną (“to strike”). Cognate with stq strieken, Dutch gestreken, German Low German streken, German gestrichen.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA