The root word of “cortège” is the Latin “cohors,” meaning “retinue” (a synonym for “entourage”). It was adopted into Romance languages to describe royal courts — in Italian, “corteggiare” is a verb that means “to attend court,” and “corteggio” is the noun to describe the group of people surrounding the royal (or otherwise important) figure. The French borrowed the word and turned it into “cortège,” and when it came into English, it retained the same spelling. When the word is not describing an entourage surrounding an important person, it’s sometimes used for a funeral procession (although it’s still usually reserved for prominent figures).