A viceroy was a man sent by a king or queen to rule a distant country or colony in their place. He was not the king, but inside that territory he acted with the king's power: he made laws, commanded soldiers, collected taxes, and people bowed to him as they would to the ruler himself. The most famous examples come from the great empires — the Spanish viceroys who ruled Mexico and Peru, and the British Viceroy of India, who governed a huge part of Asia from Delhi and Calcutta until 1947. The word belongs to history; no country appoints viceroys today, so you will meet it in history books, museums and films, not in the news. The territory a viceroy ruled is called a viceroyalty. Because the job was always given by an emperor or king to control conquered land, the word carries a colonial feeling — for people in India or Latin America it is not a neutral word, it names foreign rule. In modern writing you sometimes see it used as a joke or a criticism: calling a powerful regional manager 'the company's viceroy in Asia' suggests he acts like a little king. Note also that in North America 'viceroy' is the name of an orange-and-black butterfly that looks like a monarch — a nice piece of naming, since a viceroy imitates a monarch.