Mafia definition

mäfē-ə
Any of various similar criminal organizations, especially when dominated by members of the same nationality.
noun
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(informal) Any group engaged in organized crime.

The Russian mafia.

noun
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Any exclusive, dominating group.
noun
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(informal) A tightly knit group of trusted associates, as of a political leader.
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A secret criminal organization operating mainly in Sicily since the early 1800s and known for its intimidation of and retribution against law enforcement officials and witnesses.
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A secret criminal organization operating mainly in the United States and Italy and engaged in illegal activities such as gambling, drug-dealing, protection, and prostitution.
noun
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In the U.S. and elsewhere, a secret society, of Italian origin, engaged in such illegal activities as gambling, prostitution, and illicit trade in narcotics.
noun
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noun
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noun
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(in compound terms such as "moral mafia") An entity which attempts to control a specified arena.

The digital mafia.

The literary mafia.

noun
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(specifically) An international criminal organization of Sicilian origin operating in Italy and the United States.
pronoun
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(by extension) Any organized crime syndicate operating internationally in high-level organized crime; often with a modifying adjective, such as a nationality.

Somehow he managed to upset the Russian Mafia.

pronoun
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A party game modelling a conflict between an informed minority (the mafia) and an uninformed majority (the innocents). Each player is secretly assigned a role within one of these teams, and the innocents attempt to identify the mafia members before they are all "murdered".
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Alternative capitalization of mafia (an entity which attempts to control a specified arena).
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Other Word Forms

Noun

Singular:
mafia
Plural:
mafias

Origin of mafia

  • Italian back-formation from mafiuso, mafioso Mafioso Mafioso

    From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition

  • From Italian. Perhaps from Italian mafia (“spirit of hostility to the law") or from Sicilian mafia (“boldness, bravado"). See the Wikipedia article for more discussion of the origin of the word.

    From Wiktionary

  • See Mafia. The sense "entity which attempts to control a specified arena" makes an analogy to crime-syndicate mafias' attempts to control certain kinds of business in the regions in which they exist.

    From Wiktionary

Mafia Sentence Examples

  • And Arthur's not smart enough to be a Mafia lawyer.

  • I just don't fool around with married women, especially a woman wed to a Mafia lawyer.

  • In Naples, the Camorra and in Sicily, the Mafia are secret societies whose power of resistance to authority is still not inconsiderable.

  • Some of the definitions would apply to the authority of powerful religious bodies in certain periods of history, or of illegal associations, such as the Mafia, which have terrorized the community.

  • Almost the only respect in which the Left could boast a decided improvement over the administration of the Right was the energy displayed by Nicotera in combating brigandage and the mafia in Calabria and Sicily.

More sentences

Related articles

Words near mafia in the Dictionary