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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
cassock
noun
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Corrigan lifted his cassock at the knees.
▪ His cassock came up over his socks.
▪ Mr Copley, robed in cassock and billowing surplice, was impatiently pacing the back lawn seeming oblivious to their presence.
▪ On the live Bishop the silver pectoral cross rose and fell on the purple cassock.
▪ Roused, the Monsignor hiked the skirt of his voluminous cassock and lumbered up to the podium.
▪ Sophia could imagine them in cassocks, doing something with candles or incense.
▪ The priest's cassock was stained with vomit and blood.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Cassock

Cassock \Cas"sock\, n. [F. casaque, fr. It. casacca, perh. fr. L. casa cottage, in It., house; or of Slavic origin.]

  1. A long outer garment formerly worn by men and women, as well as by soldiers as part of their uniform.

  2. (Eccl.) A garment resembling a long frock coat worn by the clergy of certain churches when officiating, and by others as the usually outer garment.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
cassock

1540s, "long loose gown," from Middle French casaque "long coat" (16c.), probably ultimately from Turkish quzzak "nomad, adventurer," (the source of Cossack), from their typical riding coat. Or perhaps from Arabic kazagand, from Persian kazhagand "padded coat," from kazh "raw silk" + agand "stuffed." Chiefly a soldier's cloak 16c.-17c.; ecclesiastical use is from 1660s.

Wiktionary
cassock

n. 1 (context obsolete English) A military cloak or long coat worn by soldiers or horsemen in the 16th and 17th centuries. (16th-17th c.) 2 (context obsolete English) A coarse, loose cloak or gown, worn by women, sailors, shepherds, countryfolk etc. (16th-17th c.) 3 An item of clerical clothing: a long, sheath-like, close-fitting, ankle-length robe worn by clergy members of some Christian denominations. (from 17th c.)

WordNet
cassock

n. a black garment reaching down to the ankles; worn by priests or choristers

Wikipedia
Cassock

The cassock, or soutane, is an item of Christian clerical clothing used by the clergy of Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican and Reformed churches, among others. "Ankle-length garment" is the literal meaning of the corresponding Latin term, vestis talaris. It is related to habit traditionally worn by nuns, monks, and friars.

The cassock derives historically from the tunic that in ancient Rome was worn underneath the toga and the chiton that was worn beneath the himation in ancient Greece. In religious services, it has traditionally been worn underneath vestments, such as the alb.

In the West, the cassock is little used today except for religious services; but in many countries it was the normal everyday wear of the clergy until the second half of the 20th century, when it was replaced even in those countries by a conventional suit, distinguished from lay dress by being generally black and by incorporating a clerical collar.

Usage examples of "cassock".

Closer to the entrance were the nobles, dressed in exotic silks of every color and description, and the templars, who embellished their black cassocks with bronze neckchains and breastpins of precious copper.

They were all intensely curious but all, even the children, remarkably discreet: yet at one point Stephen noticed a tall, martial man leave a group of Catholic Ghegs and come deliberately towards them, twirling his moustache with a hand adorned with a magnificent amethyst: he had two silver-mounted pistols in the belt of what looked very like a cassock and a musket or perhaps a fowling-piece - no, a musket -over his shoulder, a pectoral cross showing beneath its butt.

Knights wearing Enathpanean vests, cassocks, and khalats milled on horses that looked like starved nags.

He wore a jubon or close vest of crimson cloth, with cuisses or short skirts of yellow satin, a loose cassock of brocade, a rich Moorish scimiter, and a hat with plumes.

Drawing their palms over grass, goldenrod, and white alyssum, they walked toward the common line, fourteen of them, their yellow silk cassocks whipped by wind and fiery convections, the five snakes about each of their throats outstretched, like the spokes of a candelabra, searching every direction.

Concha was brushing invisible grains of snuff from his cassock sleeve and watching Estella with anxious eyes.

On the rainy tarmac at Biggin Hill Executive Airport, Aringarosa emerged from his cramped plane, bundling his cassock against the cold damp.

For the first part of the programme we wore our blue cassocks and our ruffs, and sang Byrd and Tallis and all that.

But to Father Concha the sum represented five hundred cups of black coffee denied to himself in the evening at the cafe - five hundred packets of cigarettes, so-called of Havana, unsmoked - two new cassocks in the course of twenty years - a hundred little gastronomic delights sternly resisted season after season.

He was dressed instead in a simple black cassock that seemed to amplify the solidity of his substantial frame.

The camerlegno, in his torn cassock, with the scorched brand on his chest, looked like some sort of battered champion who had overcome the rings of hell for this one moment of revelation.

With his words still hanging in the air, the camerlegno grabbed the neck of his cassock and violently tore it open, revealing his bare chest.

The camerlegno pulled a pocket watch from his cassock and looked at it.

The camerlegno pulled a silk handkerchief from his cassock and handed it to Langdon so he could clean himself.

The camerlegno's cassock was torn open, and his bare chest was seared black.