The Collaborative International Dictionary
Dalmatica \Dal*mat"i*ca\, n., Dalmatic \Dal*mat"ic\, n.[LL. dalmatica: cf. F. dalmatique.]
(R. C. Ch.) A vestment with wide sleeves, and with two stripes, worn at Mass by deacons, and by bishops at pontifical Mass; -- imitated from a dress originally worn in Dalmatia.
A robe worn on state ocasions, as by English kings at their coronation.
Wiktionary
n. A long wide-sleeved tunic, which serves as a liturgical vestment in the Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches and is worn by a deacon at the eucharist or Mass and, although infrequently, by bishops as an undergarment above the alb.
Wikipedia
The dalmatic is a long wide-sleeved tunic, which serves as a liturgical vestment in the Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Anglican, and United Methodist churches, which is sometimes worn by a deacon at Mass or other services. Although infrequent, it may also be worn by bishops above the alb and below the chasuble. Like the chasuble worn by priests and bishops, it is an outer vestment and is supposed to match the liturgical colour of the day.
A dalmatic is also worn by the British monarch during the Coronation service.
Usage examples of "dalmatic".
Silwyth had pointedly left in his cell for him, the dalmatic, the long-skirted tunic known as the houppelande, then much in fashion, the woolen hose and cloak and jeweled girdle and leather slippers.
Some had been deformed by the centuries, and appeared like prodigies of nature, fetuses clumsily taken from the maternal womb, inhuman beings on whose contracted forms unnatural, arabesqued chasubles appeared, the colors now dulled, dalmatics that you would have thought embroidered but were gnawed by the work of the years and by some worm of the catacombs.
The three priests are the deacon (usually Whimble) in a gold silk dalmatic over an alb which is a sort of chemise with lace edging.
The deacon came out onto the raised space before the altar screen and, holding his thumb extended, drew his long hair from under his dalmatic and, making the sign of the cross on his breast, began in a loud and solemn voice to recite the words of the prayer….
He longed for the minor sacred offices, to be vested with the tunicle of subdeacon at high mass, to stand aloof from the altar, forgotten by the people, his shoulders covered with a humeral veil, holding the paten within its folds or, when the sacrifice had been accomplished, to stand as deacon in a dalmatic of cloth of gold on the step below the celebrant, his hands joined and his face towards the people, and sing the chant Ite missa est.
Cadoc took an embroidered mantle off its hanger and fitted it over the fine linen sakkos and be-jeweled dalmatic that enrobed him.
It was an impression of being in the shop of a merchant of stuffs who draped before his eyes sendals and taffetas, brocades, satins, damasks, velvets, and bows, fringes and furbelows, and then stoles, pluvials, chasuÂbles, dalmatics.