mafia, maffia
(noun) any tightly knit group of trusted associates
Mafia, Maffia, Sicilian Mafia
(noun) a secret terrorist group in Sicily; originally opposed tyranny but evolved into a criminal organization in the middle of the 19th century
Mafia, Maffia, Cosa Nostra
(noun) a crime syndicate in the United States; organized in families; believed to have important relations to the Sicilian Mafia
Source: WordNet® 3.1
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.
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.
(in compound terms such as "moral mafia") An entity which attempts to control a specified arena.
the Mafia
(specifically) An international criminal organization of Sicilian origin operating in Italy and the United States.
Synonym: Cosa Nostra
(by extension) Any organized crime syndicate operating internationally in high-level organized crime; often with a modifying adjective, such as a nationality.
Synonym: mob
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".
Alternative letter-case form of mafia (“an entity which attempts to control a specified arena”)
Source: Wiktionary
Maf"fi*a, Ma"fi*a, n. [It. maffia.]
Definition: A secret society which organized in Sicily as a political organization, but is now widespread among Italians, and is used to further or protect private interests, reputedly by illegal methods.
Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition
22 January 2025
(noun) memorial consisting of a very large stone forming part of a prehistoric structure (especially in western Europe)
According to Guinness World Records, on 25 September 2016, the Birla Institute of Management Technology (India) in Uttar Pradesh, India, constructed the largest coffee cups pyramid consisting of 23,821 cups. They used paper takeaway coffee cups to build the pyramid.
