Definition of cortège in English:

noun

• 1A solemn procession, especially for a funeral.

  ‘a funeral cortège’

  ‘off we sped in the cortège of limousines that had been drawn up on the tarmac’

  More example sentences

  • ‘A million people lined the route of the funeral cortège while millions more watched on television.’
  • ‘The funeral cortège was led by a lone piper and flanked by a guard of honour.’
  • ‘The singer climbs, grim-faced, into the band's chauffeur-driven, people carrier as though he's about to join a funeral cortège.’
  • ‘A New Orleans-style jazz band headed the funeral cortège as mourners paid their respects to an Old Town institution.’
  • ‘The funeral cortège will then go onto Rochdale Cemetery where the fallen soldier will be buried with full military honours at 12.30 pm.’
  • ‘So full were the streets of Rome between Piazza Venezia and Piazza San Giovanni that the funeral cortège passed with difficulty through a crowd that was estimated variously at between one and two million people.’
  • ‘It was found in 1992 by a gravedigger, who'd been waiting for a funeral cortège to arrive when he noticed that one of the stones they were going to put the coffin on had some Egyptian-looking scratches in it.’
  • ‘He commissioned a series of twelve stone crosses, known as the Eleanor crosses, to mark the stopping-places of her funeral cortège from Lincoln to Westminster abbey.’
  • ‘Her viscera were buried in Lincoln cathedral but the body was returned to Westminster, and at each of the twelve places where the funeral cortège rested Edward had a memorial cross erected.’
  • ‘Adding Creole sauce to an omelette is like turning a funeral cortège into a carnival.’
  • ‘The cortège was accompanied by a guard of honour made up of local ICA members.’
  • ‘His homeward journey begins with a cortège of coffin-bearing vehicles.’
  • ‘And, as a fitting tribute to the mechanic said to have a wonderful sense of humour, a pick-up truck belonging to his previous employer formed part of the cortège.’
  • ‘He was a very popular young man who lived life to the full and was well liked by all who had the pleasure to know him, which was shown by the huge cortège at both the removal and burial.’
  • ‘A lone piper led the cortège and the school-children formed a guard of honour on the day of his burial.’
  • ‘It is the final irony of a celebrity life to be upstaged by a grander cortège.’
  • ‘At her funeral, there had been a plan for her beloved and grateful poor to form part of the cortège.’
  • ‘In pounding rain, a cortège of international savants bore his body up a muddy road for burial below Montmartre.’
  • ‘Many of the people who lined the streets to watch the cortège pass had been waiting all night.’
  • ‘The rhythms of the cortège creep back in, as does the nervous main theme of the first movement.’

  Synonyms

  procession, parade, cavalcade, motorcade, carcade, convoy, caravan, train, column, file, line, trail, chain, rank, troop

  View synonyms

  1. 1.1A person's entourage or retinue.
     ‘his entourage became an ever-present cortège wherever he went’
     More example sentences

     • ‘She had visions of being followed by a cortège who would worship her as a goddess of luck.’
     Synonyms

     entourage, retinue, train, suite, escort, court, company, attendant company

     View synonyms