vicar

英文词源

vicar

vicar: [13] A vicar is etymologically a ‘substitute’ for or ‘representative’ of someone else: thus the pope is the vicar of God on Earth, and the vicar of a parish was originally someone who stood in for the parson or rector. The word comes via Old French vicaire from Latin vicārius ‘substitute, deputy’. This was a noun use of the adjective vicārius ‘substituting’ (source of English vicarious [17], which more closely preserves the meaning of its Latin original). And vicārius in turn was derived from vicis ‘change, turn, office’, source also of English vicissitude [16] and the prefix vice-.
=> vicarious, vicissitude

vicar (n.)

early 14c., from Anglo-French vicare, Old French vicaire "deputy, second in command," also in the ecclesiastical sense (12c.), from Latin vicarius "a substitute, deputy, proxy," noun use of adjective vicarius "substituted, delegated," from vicis "change, interchange, succession; a place, position" (see vicarious). The original notion is of "earthly representative of God or Christ;" but also used in sense of "person acting as parish priest in place of a real parson" (early 14c.).

The original Vicar of Bray (in figurative use from 1660s) seems to have been Simon Allen, who held the benefice from c. 1540 to 1588, thus serving from the time of Henry VIII to Elizabeth I, being twice a Catholic and twice a Protestant but always vicar of Bray. The village is near Maidenhead in Berkshire.