rochet

/ˈɹɒtʃɪt/

Etymology

From Middle English roket, rochet, from Anglo-Norman rochet, Middle French rochet, from Frankish (cf. Old English rocc (“overgarment”)).

Why this word is great

ROCHET — [Noun] A bishop’s white vestment, resembling a surplice but with narrower sleeves, falling either just below the knee (Catholic) or to the cassock’s hem (Anglican). From Middle English roket, rochet, from Anglo-Norman rochet, Middle French rochet, from Frankish (cf. Old English rocc, "overgarment"). Unlike the "surplice" (a loose, wide-sleeved garment for choristers) or the "cassock" (a foundational robe worn beneath), the rochet is a bishop’s mantle, a deliberate narrowing of grace. It is the crisp linen catching candlelight in a dim cathedral, the rustle of authority as sleeves brush against vellum manuscripts, the stark white standing sentinel over darker robes—a sartorial assertion that even holiness must be tailored to office.

noun

  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.“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.”
  2. A frock or outer garment worn in the 13th and 14th centuries.
  3. The red gurnard.