cassock n also cossack, cossock, cozzock, kossack, kossak, kossok [phonetics unavailable]. Cp OED ~ sb 2 b1ong loose coat or gown worn by rustics [and] sailors' obs (1590-1628) for sense 1; cp O Sup² kossak n 'jacket' (Nfld: 1919), DC kossack n 1, 2 'short [animal] skin jacket of pullover type' (Nfld-Labr: 1884; 1939) for sense 2.
   1 Name given by English visitors and settlers to a loose coat of caribou skin or purloined ship's canvas worn by the Beothuk indians.
   1612 Willoughby Papers [Guy's journal] 8 [The Beothuks wore] a sheete gowne or cassocke made of stag skinnes the moste that came downe to the middle of theire leg, with sleves to the middle of theire arme, [and] a beaver skinne about theire necke was all theire apparell. 1792 PULLING MS 12.2 Mr Clark who I've before mentioned as residing at Fogo told me Hooper does not say he killed the Indian but that he saw his cossock fall. [1811] BUCHAN MS 86 Their dress consisted of a loose cossack, without sleeves, but puckered at the collar to prevent it falling off the shoulders, and made so long that when fastened up around the haunches it became triple, forming a good security against accident happening to the abdomen. This is fringed round with cutting of the same substance. The only discernible difference between the dress of the sexes, was the addition of a hood attached to the back of the cossack of the female for the reception of their children. [1820] 1915 HOWLEY 124 [describing body of Beothuk woman at a burial site] In her cossack were placed all such articles as belonged to her that could not be contained in the coffin. 1846 TOCQUE 285 After travelling nearly a day, they espied them on a distant hill, shaking their cassocks at them in defiance, which were made out of the boat's sails, and daubed with red ochre. 1860 MULLOCK 11 A person told me there some time ago, that a party of mountaineer Indians saw at some distance (about fifty miles from the seacoast) a party of strange Indians, clothed in long robes or cassocks of skin, who fled from them.
   2 A loosely-fitting pull-over garment of animal skin, swanskin, canvas or calico, with a hood attached, worn in northern Newfoundland and Labrador; the Inuit ADIKEY, DICKY².
   1861 DE BOILIEU 138 As fashion is not studied, a suit of clothes or a cassock and trousers are supposed to last ten or fifteen years. 1861 Harper's xxii, 751 The Ungava Esquimaux inhabit houses of ice, dress wholly in furs, carry their children in their boot-legs, or cradle them in the hoods of their kossoks. 1884 STEARNS 168 A cossack is a loose short jacket. It is made of swan-skin, and the long sleeves reach to the hand while the robe or hood for the head is cornucopia-shaped, and fastened to the collar behind. The binding is of calico. 1895 GRENFELL 190-1 At one time, with their skin kossack or coat, laced over the opening, and fast around their wrists and face, they could upset with impunity, for with a couple of deft strokes with their paddles they were soon right way up again. 1923 GRENFELL 69 He showed me his second and last covering, a shoddy border with a split open 'kossak' or outside dickey, regularly crucified into the middle of the so-called 'blanket.' 1937 JUNEK 103 Eskimo dog culture with all of its associated traits ... sealing and sealskin curing, seal oil; other traits are the making of sealskin boots (pacs), and 'cossacks' (fur-trimmed winter garments). T 178-65 He was a loose jacket, come down across here. There'd be lots of them would have a bit of fur around the tails and round the faces. And they'd have loose sleeves. Cozzock is the name of them. And they'd have they for summer and winter-made out of calico for summertime, and this heavy material [like swanskin] for winter. T 181-65 Had on their cozzocks; skin cozzock, skin pants, and [what] we'd call skin boots. C 70-12 [At Englee] the sweater was worn inside a cozzock, a coat made from sailing canvas, when it was very cold.
   3 A garment worn over head and shoulders in winter; NORTH-WESTER.
   1972 MURRAY 270 'Cossocks' (a sort of helmet which covered the whole head and most of the face except the eyes), especially welcomed by those who went in the country ten to twelve miles for wood on snowy, frosty days in winter.

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