The Latin name gives the reason for the shape. Superpelliceum means over the fur garment, and the garment in question was the pelisse, the fur-lined choir dress that clergy in northern Europe wore to survive long offices in stone churches with no heating. An alb is cut close and gathered at the waist with a cincture, which will not go over a fur coat; a surplice is cut wide, put on over the head, and hangs loose from the shoulders with very full sleeves.
It is white linen, undecorated apart from occasional lace at the hem and cuffs, and knee length or longer. The cotta, shorter and with narrower sleeves, is the Italian form and is what most servers and choristers wear in practice.
Its liturgical place is the office rather than the eucharist. A priest wears a surplice for choir offices, for the occasional services of baptism, marriage and burial, for preaching, and for anything at which he is present without celebrating; he wears the alb and chasuble to celebrate. Clerks, servers, choristers and lay readers wear it as the general garment of anyone functioning in the sanctuary or the choir, which makes it by a wide margin the most commonly seen piece of Christian liturgical clothing in the west.