from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A viscount or sheriff.
Sorry, no etymologies found.
Sheriffe or she-reeve, was the deputy of the alderman, chosen by him, sat judge in some courts, and saw sentence executed; hence he was called vicecomes.
England was in so many ways similar to that of the viscount, vicecomes, which still survived in Normandy as an administrative office, that it was very easy to identify the two and to bring the Norman name into common use as an equivalent of the Saxon.
A _viscount_ (_vicecomes_) was an officer subordinate to a _count_.