Definition of "surplice"

On the previous night he had taken the manuscript out of a long neglected chest, containing old shooting jackets, old Oxbridge scribbling books, his old surplice, and battered cap and gown, and other memorials of youth, school, and home.

1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter III, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume II, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1850

Beneath an old ebony table were two long carved oak chests. I lifted the lid of one, and at the top was a once-white surplice covered with dust, and beneath was a mass of tracts — Commonwealth Quartos, unbound — a prey to worms and decay.

1880, William Blades, The Enemies of Books, page 40

He was a wide man and looked wider in his surplice, especially from our pew, which was close up under the pulpit.

1942, Emily Carr, “The Blessing”, in The Book of Small