Shriven is the past participle of
shrive. The simple past tense is
shrove. According to Wiktionary,
shrived is an alternate for both
shrove and
shriven.
Its meaning relates to the hearing of confessions and absolution of sins, but
shriven seems to be used more broadly:
...universities suddenly shriven of colossal overseas-student revenues... [Independent Australia]
Our contemporary morals are so shriven and shrunk. [Scottish Field]
The military has been shriven by spending cuts ... [Guardian]
Fires guttered and went out, shriven by the chill... [Polygon]
The plant leaves and stems will begin to rot, shriven and collapse. [Daily Mail]
The last one is surely meant to be
shrivel. Perhaps most of the others should be
shriveled. Maybe the first quote ought to have
shorn.
If a word is so often misused, it's probably not common. I'm making
shriven rare, along with
shrived and
shriving. As Mike noted,
shrive is already rare. I'm also making
shrove rare.
Shrove Tuesday is probably still a fairly well-known expression, but that's with a capital
S. Use of
shrove without a capital is very rare, and is usually in the context of an explanation of the origin of the name for
Shrove Tuesday.
