vice president

plural vice presidents · abbreviation VP · alternative vice-president

1. A deputy to a president, often empowered to assume the position of president on their death or absence.

   Synonyms: VP, V.P., V. P., veep, deputy president

2. An executive in a business in charge of a department or branch.

   Synonyms: provost

plural Vice Presidents · alternative Vice-President

1. USThe holder of the secondary office to the President of the United States, who is first in line of succession to the President, and also acts as presiding officer of the United States Senate.

   Section. 4. The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

   1787 September 17, Constitutional Convention, “Article II”, in Constitution of the United States, Philadelphia, page 3

   1 more example

   The only responsibility and power of the Vice President under the Constitution is to faithfully count the electoral college votes as they have been cast. The Constitution does not empower the Vice President to alter in any way the votes that have been cast, either by rejecting certain of them or otherwise. How the Vice President discharges this constitutional obligation is not a question of his loyalty to the President any more than it would be a test of a President’s loyalty to his Vice President whether the President assented to the impeachment and prosecution of his Vice President for the commission of high crimes while in office. No President and no Vice President would—or should—consider either event as a test of political loyalty of one to the other. And if either did, he would have to accept that political loyalty must yield to constitutional obligation. Neither the President nor the Vice President has any higher loyalty than to the Constitution.

   2021 January 5, J. Michael Luttig, Twitter, archived from the original on 05 Jan 2021, 2:39:10; republished as The Washington Post, 5 January 2021