Viceroy:
When a country is ruled by a monarch — a king or queen — and controls colonies or provinces, the monarch can’t govern all those remote areas personally. That’s where a viceroy comes in. The king or queen appoints a representative to rule over the colony or province. This viceroy is the most powerful person in this region, kind of like a king or president. The difference is that the viceroy has to answer to the monarch, his boss back in the mother country. [Vocabulary.com]
A trifle informal. I suppose I should have picked a more authoritative definition. Noted in “Trump isn’t doing himself any favors by giving Rubio too many jobs,” Steve Benen, Maddowblog:
Trump has tasked Rubio with serving as the acting administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, the acting archivist for the National Archives and the chair of the administration’s World Expo 2035 preparations. The New York Times published a striking report in July noting that Rubio is also, for all intents and purposes, “running” Venezuela, serving as the country’s “de facto viceroy.”
And, on this rainy day, have a picture.
