rochet

plural rochets

1. A white vestment, worn by a bishop, similar to a surplice but with narrower sleeves, extending either to below the knee (in the Catholic church) or to the hem of the cassock in the Anglican church.First known use 12th c.

   They will tell you that they see no difference between an idler with a hat and national cockade, and an idler in a cowl or in a rochet.

   1790 November, Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, and on the Proceedings in Certain Societies in London Relative to that Event. […], London: […] J[ames] Dodsley, […], →OCLC

   2 more examples

   Each priest adorn'd was in a surplice white, / The bishops don'd their albes and copes of state, // Above their rochets button'd fair before, / And mitres on their heads like crowns they wore.

   1600, Edward Fairfax, The Jerusalem Delivered of Tasso, XI, iv

   Or elſe they vvould ſtraine us out a certaine figurative Prelat, by vvringing the collective allegory of thoſe ſeven Angels into ſeven ſingle Rochets.

   1642 (indicated as 1641), John Milton, “To the Argument of B[ishop] Andrews and the Primat”, in The Reason of Church-governement Urg’d against Prelaty […], London: […] E[dward] G[riffin] for Iohn Rothwell, […], →OCLC, 1st book, page 8

2. archaichistoricalA frock or outer garment worn in the 13th and 14th centuries.First known use 14th c.

plural rochets

1. obsoleteThe red gurnard.First known use 14th–19th c.