word origin

[billspen]

Where does the word "vice" as in vice captain come from and what does it mean

[The Builder]

latin for "in place of".................. :o)

[Clanad]

Exacto-mundo, buildersmate... our friends at Phrase Finder expands on your perfunctory (but adequate) explanation thusly... "The prefix "vice" found in "vice-president" [or captain] and similar titles is a bit more complicated. The Latin word "vice" means "in place of," and is a form (ablative, for you Latin fans) of "vicis," meaning "change." So a "vice-president" is a person who takes the place of the president if necessary. By the way, this is the same "vice" found in "vice-versa," "versa" being a form of the Latin "vertere," to turn, giving "vice-versa" the sense of "in reversed places."

[The Builder]

Thank you for reminding me of my declensions Clanad............. :o)

By the way...................I'm often confused with my "mate"................he's the main man..................I'm just a humble tradesman LOL

[Clanad]

My belated apologies The Builder! I see the afore-mentioned buildersmate often and made the blind leap... (Great word, that, by the way... {declension} )

[fredpuli47]

And, Clanad, Latin fans might like to know that the noun vicis,in a sense, doesn't exist. That is, 'vicis' does not exist in the nominative case, singular .It exists only in the genitive, the accusative and the ablative, singular and the nominative,accusative, dative and ablative, plural !.It's not found in the genitive in pre-Augustine times. [ So noted in Lewis and Short, A Latin Dictionary] Presumably the idea was that one person, the subject, could not be 'in turn/ in reciprocal succession' with himself, but who knows?.

There are times when Latin is even weirder than it first appears.