Added 9 October 2026
mafia
/ˈmɑfi.ə/ noun
noun Definition from WordNet 3.1, Princeton University. Pronunciation from Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org. More about mafia at Wordnik → Where our words come from →
- A crime syndicate in the United States; organized in families; believed to have important relations to the Sicilian Mafia.
- A secret terrorist group in Sicily; originally opposed tyranny but evolved into a criminal organization in the middle of the 19th century.
- Any tightly knit group of trusted associates.
Origin
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, via Kaikki.org (CC BY-SA)