Mafia

• Maffia (less common)

From Italian Mafia. 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.

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈmɑfi.ə/
• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈmæfi.ə/

the Mafia

1. (specifically) An international criminal organization of Sicilian origin operating in Italy and the United States.

   Synonym: Cosa Nostra

2. (by extension) Any organized crime syndicate operating internationally in high-level organized crime; often with a modifying adjective, such as a nationality.

   Synonym: mob

   Somehow he managed to upset the Russian Mafia.

3. 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".
4. Alternative letter-case form of mafia (“an entity which attempts to control a specified arena”)

• mafia
• mafia state
• Mafioso
• Mafiya (rare, used to describe Russian "mafias")

• Camorra
• capo
• godfather
• goodfella
• 'Ndrangheta
• omertà
• Thuggee
• Triad
• Yakuza

• Maffia

From Italian mafia.

• Audio

  (file)

Mafia f (genitive Mafia, plural Mafias)

1. Mafia

• Mafia in Duden online