[In sense 1 ad. OF. viconté, -ei, -ey, etc. (mod.F. vicomté) VISCOUNTY, or med.L. vicecomitātus, f. vicecomes: see prec. In sense 2, f. VICE- + COUNTY1 2.]
† 1. A viscounty. Obs.–1
1639. Fuller, Holy War, III. xxii. 147. And for a breakfast to begin with, he [Simon de Montfort] was seised of the Vicecounty of Besiers.
1706. Stevens, Sp. Dict., I. Villa-Nueva de Cardenas, a Town in … Andaluzia,… made a Vice-County by King Philip the 4th.
2. A division of a large county, treated as a county-area with regard to the distribution of species of plants, etc.
1859. H. C. Watson, Cybele Brit., IV. 130. Smaller and more numerous sections could be formed by dividing the great counties into vice-counties. Ibid. (1873–4), Topographical Bot. (title-p.), The 112 Counties and Vice-counties of England, Wales, and Scotland.
1890. Science-Gossip, XXVI. 110/1. Not more than ten out of the 112 counties and vice-counties into which Great Britain is divided.
