Mafia

English

/ˈmɑfi.ə/, /ˈmæfi.ə/

proper noun
Definitions
  • (specifically) An international criminal organization of Sicilian origin operating in Italy and the United States.
  • (by extension) Any organized crime syndicate operating internationally in high-level organized crime; .
  • 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".

Etymology

Borrowed from Italian Mafia, mafia (spirit of hostility to the law) derived from Sicilian mafiusu (boldness, bravado).

Origin

Sicilian

mafiusu

Gloss

boldness, bravado

Timeline

Distribution of cognates by language

Geogrpahic distribution of cognates

Cognates and derived terms