Iceland. [Icel. sýsla business, work, stewardship, prefecture, diocese.] diocese.] (See quots.) Hence Sysselman.
c. 1792. Encycl. Brit. (ed. 3), IX. 90/2. The governor [of Iceland] … has under him a bailiff, two laymen, a sheriff, and 21 sysselmen, or magistrates who superintend small districts.
1838. Penny Cycl., XII. 427/1. These districts [of Iceland] are divided into syssels, or sheriffdoms, a sysselman being a magistrate and receiver of the king’s taxes in each of them.
