stricken
Americanverb
adjective
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hit or wounded by a weapon, missile, or the like.
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beset or afflicted, as with disease, trouble, or sorrow.
stricken areas; a stricken family.
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deeply affected, as with grief, fear, or other emotions.
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characterized by or showing the effects of affliction, trouble, misfortune, a mental blow, etc..
stricken features.
adjective
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laid low, as by disease or sickness
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deeply affected, as by grief, love, etc
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archaic wounded or injured
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of stricken
First recorded in 1530–40
Explanation
Stricken means "overwhelmed by emotion." When you saw the pretty new girl at school smiling at you, you were so stricken you walked right into a wall. Stricken means "affected," whether it's in a good way — being so stricken by spring fever that you can't stop singing and goofing around — or bad, like being stricken by a real fever and a sore throat and the chills and. . . you get the idea. You can also be stricken by fear, like a family so stricken by fear of bedbugs that they cancelled their hotel reservation and just slept in their car.
Vocabulary lists containing stricken
The Outsiders
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List 6
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Bud, Not Buddy
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Stricken with grief, he drifted for a while, finding work in the Californian oilfields - before travelling to Paris and Florence, where he studied art.
From BBC • Sep. 16, 2025
Stricken with a brain tumor, Engel couldn’t speak, so instead of “aye” he pointed to his eye to signify his vote and cement the landmark legislation’s passage.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 9, 2023
Stricken in one arm, she cradles the baby, proclaims him "a great king ... born unto Israel," and is cured.
From Reuters • Dec. 20, 2022
Stricken by a viral pandemic, but with the world’s best hospitals to fight it.
From Slate • May 13, 2020
Stricken, he took in the pages on the wall, their cryptic lines drawn to depict oscillations in the voice, cries and dips lost to both of us.
From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves" by M.T. Anderson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
