mafia
/ˈmæfi.ə/US/ˈmɑfi.ə/
mafia noun: a hierarchically structured secret organisation engaged in illegal activities like distribution of narcotics, gambling and extortion.
Noun
mafia (plural mafias)
- A hierarchically structured secret organisation engaged in illegal activities like distribution of narcotics, gambling and extortion.
- A crime syndicate.
- A trusted group of associates, as of a political leader.
- An entity which attempts to control a specified arena by violence or threats.
- moral mafia
- Worse, it confirms what one always suspected about the 1930s literary mafia, with their graceless posing and relentless self-obsession — what terrible , terrible bores they were.1994, Francis Wheen, Lord Gnome's Literary Companion, page 161
Proper noun (1) capitalized: Mafia
the Mafia
- The international criminal organization of Sicilian origin operating in Italy and the United States.
- Synonyms:
- Mob, Cosa Nostra
- Any other specific 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.
- Synonyms:
- Mob
Proper noun (2) capitalized: Mafia
Mafia
- A social deduction 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".
mafia meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
mafia in Hindi
- a crime syndicate
- माफ़िया māfiyā
mafia in Tamil
- குற்றமிழை குழு
mafia in Marathi
- a crime syndicate
- माफिया māphiyā
mafia in Urdu
- a crime syndicate
- مافِیا māfiyā
More languagesFewer languages
- mafia in Bengali
- মাফিয়া maphiẏa
- mafia in Telugu
- మాఫియా, మాఫియాలు
- mafia in Malayalam
- മാഫിയ
- mafia in Kannada
- ಕೇಡಿತಂಡ
- mafia in Punjabi
- ਮਾਫੀਆ, ਮਾਫ਼ੀਆ
- mafia in Gujarati
- માફિયા, માફિયાઓ
- mafia in Odia
- ମାଫିଆ, ମାଫିଆମାନେ
- mafia in Nepali
- माफिया, माफियाहरू
- mafia in Tagalog
- sindikato, mafia
- mafia in Arabic
- مَافِيَا māfiyā
- mafia in Malay
- mafia
- mafia in Indonesian
- mafia
- mafia in Thai
- มาเฟีย maa-fiia
- mafia in Vietnamese
- xã hội đen
- mafia in Myanmar
- မာဖီးယား mahpi:ya:
Examples of mafia in a sentence
- If he doesn't pay off the mafia, he’ll wear cement shoes to the bottom of the drink!
- Officially it's a dry-cleaning shop, but everyone knows it's a front for the mafia.
- The mafia boss put a contract out on the man who betrayed him.
Synonyms of mafia
Forms of mafia
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | mafias |
| alternative form (obsolete) | maffia |
| Proper noun | |
| alternative form (obsolete) | Maffia |
Origin of mafia
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.
Borrowed from Italian mafia, of uncertain origin. In the first instance, it is not clear whether the lemma in question is a Sicilian exonym or endonym, since written and oral sources on this term are scarce, the etymology remains uncertain and it's worthy of further investigation. It is possibly a regional term of the then recently established Kingdom of Italy; thus the meaning "spirit of hostility to the law" could be just derivative. The hypotheses put forward have been varied, but not very convincing from a reconstructive point of view. See Sicilian mafia for more. See, also, the Wikipedia article for more discussion of the origin of the word. Doublet of mafiya.
Words formed from mafia
Phrases with mafia
Questions about mafia
- What does mafia mean?
- Mafia means a hierarchically structured secret organisation engaged in illegal activities like distribution of narcotics, gambling and extortion.
- What is mafia in Hindi?
- Mafia in Hindi is माफ़िया (māfiyā). See Mafia meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is mafia?
- Mafia can be a noun or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce mafia?
- Mafia is pronounced /ˈmɑfi.ə/ (US).
- What is the plural of mafia?
- The plural of mafia is mafias.
Words near mafia in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: mafia (page history and authors); Mafia (page history and authors); mafia (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); mafia (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); mafia (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); mafia (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); mafia (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); mafia (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); mafia (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); mafia (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-mafia.wav.
Cite this entry: “mafia.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/mafia. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.