Paralyzed Artist Paints With His Eyes

What does “paralyzed” mean in English?

This story is about a street artist who “got sick with a disease that paralyzed his body,” and for seven years “could only move his eyes.” To be paralyzed means you cannot move a part of your body, or your whole body, usually because of illness, injury, or damage to your nerves. In this story, engineers then built him glasses that turned his eye movements into paintings.

The noun is paralysis, and you can be paralyzed in one part of the body: “paralyzed from the waist down” means the legs don’t move, but the arms still do. English also uses the word figuratively, for being completely unable to act: “fear paralyzed her” means fear stopped her from doing anything at all, not that her body actually stopped working.