If someone is bedridden, they cannot leave their bed — usually because they are old, very ill, or recovering from a serious injury. It is stronger than resting in bed for a day with a cold. A bedridden person may stay there for weeks, months, or the rest of their life, and other people must bring food, wash them, and help them turn. The word is used with care and sympathy, in hospitals, families, and news stories about long illness. Though actually the shape of the word looks like a past participle, as if a bed had “ridden” the person; the older English was closer to “bed-rider” — someone who stays on a bed as if riding it — and later -en was added because it sounded like other adjectives of that kind. Do not use it for a lazy morning or a weekend lie-in.