[VICE- So med.L., F., Sp., Pg. vice-consul, It. viceconsolo.]
† 1. A Roman proconsul. Obs.
1559. Bp. Scot, in Strype, Ann. Ref. (1709), I. App. x. 33. Certeyn wycked persons … brought hym before their vice-consul, called Gallio.
1579–80. North, Plutarch (1595), 346. The author of this epigramme reckoneth the two times of his being viceconsull, for two whole Consulshippes.
1601. Holland, Pliny, II. 526. Aterius Labeo, a noble man of Rome,… who otherwise had been vice-Consull in Gallia Narbonensis.
2. An assistant or deputy of a consul.
1601. W. Parry, Trav. Sir A. Sherley, 10. The English consulls and vice consulls.
1702. W. J., trans. Bruyn’s Voy. Levant, xxxii. 121. The next Morning we waited upon the Vice-Consul.
c. 1744. in Hanway Trav. (1762), I. V. lxxi. 327. Which oath or affirmation, the said embassador, agent, resident, consul or vice-consul respectively, is hereby authorized to administer.
1788. T. Jefferson, Writ. (1859), II. 495. The consul’s presence in his port should suspend, for the time, the functions of the vice-consul.
1867. Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk., 713. If there be a resident consul, the vice-consul is appointed and paid by him.
1882. Ld. Acton, Lett. to Mary Gladstone, 9 March (1904), 128. The Vice-Consul is a singularly intelligent and practical man.
Hence Vice-consular a., Vice-consulate, Vice-consulship.
1587. Golding, De Mornay, xxiii. (1592), 344. In Afrik they sacrifized men, vntill in the Viceconsulship of Tyberius.
1819. Byron, Lett. to Murray, 29 Oct. You say nothing of the vice-consulate for the Ravenna patrician.
1836. Marryat, Midsh. Easy (1863), 164. They found Mr. Hicks looking very red and vice-consular indeed.
1844. Kinglake, Eöthen, vii. The only anomaly which had been detected by the viceconsular wisdom.
1885. Manch. Exam., 12 Jan., 5/1. We should re-establish our two vice-consulates in the interior of Macedonia.
