Friday, August 23, 2013

viceroy

viceroy \VAHYS-roi\, noun:

1. a person appointed to rule a country or province as the deputy of the sovereign: the viceroy of India.
2. a brightly marked American butterfly, Limenitis archippus, closely mimicking the monarch butterfly in coloration.

...the viceroy, Wavell, understood that he was finished, washed-up, or in our own expressive word, funtoosh.
-- Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children, 1980
No word had come from the Portuguese Viceroy about the Rahimi's capture, why it had been done, when the ship would be released, and what conditions had to be met before that happened.
-- Indu Sundaresan, The Feast of Roses, 2003

Viceroy comes from the Latin prefix vice meaning "in place of" and roi meaning "king." It's been used in English since the 16th century.

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