viscount

• POS: Noun
• HYPHEN: vis=count

CIDE DICTIONARY

viscount, n. [OE. vicounte, OF. visconte, vescunte, F. vicomte, LL. vicecomes; L. vice (see Vice, a.) + comes a companion, LL., a count. See Count.].

•  An officer who formerly supplied the place of the count, or earl; the sheriff of the county.  [1913 Webster]
•  A nobleman of the fourth rank, next in order below an earl and next above a baron; also, his degree or title of nobility. See Peer, n., 3.  Chaucer.  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

viscount, n. a British nobleman ranking between an earl and a baron.

Derivative

viscountcy n. (pl. -ies). viscountship n. viscounty n. (pl. -ies).

Etymology

ME f. AF viscounte, OF vi(s)conte f. med.L vicecomes -mitis (as VICE-, COUNT(2))

THESAURUS

viscount

Brahman, archduke, aristocrat, armiger, baron, baronet, blue blood, count, daimio, duke, earl, esquire, gentleman, grand duke, grandee, hidalgo, lace-curtain, laird, landgrave, lord, lordling, magnate, magnifico, margrave, marquis, noble, nobleman, optimate, palsgrave, patrician, peer, seigneur, seignior, silk-stocking, squire, swell, thoroughbred, upper-cruster, waldgrave

ROGET THESAURUS

viscount

Nobility

N nobility, rank, condition, distinction, optimacy, blood, pur sang, birth, high descent, order, quality, gentility, blue blood of Castile, ancien regime, high life, haute monde, upper classes, upper ten thousand, the four hundred, elite, aristocracy, great folks, fashionable world, peer, peerage, house of lords, house of peers, lords, lords temporal and spiritual, noblesse, noble, nobleman, lord, lordling, grandee, magnifico, hidalgo, daimio, daimyo, samurai, shizoku, don, donship, aristocrat, swell, three- tailed bashaw, gentleman, squire, squireen, patrician, laureate, gentry, gentlefolk, squirarchy, better sort magnates, primates, optimates, pantisocracy, king, atheling, prince, duke, marquis, marquisate, earl, viscount, baron, thane, banneret, baronet, baronetcy, knight, knighthood, count, armiger, laird, signior, seignior, esquire, boyar, margrave, vavasour, emir, ameer, scherif, sharif, effendi, wali, sahib, chevalier, maharaja, nawab, palsgrave, pasha, rajah, waldgrave, princess, begum, duchess, marchioness, countess, lady, dame, memsahib, Do$a, maharani, rani, personage of distinction, man of distinction, personage of rank, man of rank, personage of mark, man of mark, notables, notabilities, celebrity, bigwig, magnate, great man, star, superstar, big bug, big gun, great gun, gilded rooster, magni nominis umbra, every inch a king, noble, exalted, of rank, princely, titled, patrician, aristocratic, high-, well-born, of gentle blood, genteel, comme il faut, gentlemanlike, courtly, highly respectable, in high quarters, Adel sitzt im Gemuthe nicht im Gebluete, adelig und edel sind zweierlei, noblesse oblige.