mafia

plural mafias · alternative obsolete maffia

1. A hierarchically structured secret organisation engaged in illegal activities like distribution of narcotics, gambling and extortion.
2. A crime syndicate.
3. A trusted group of associates, as of a political leader.
4. in compoundsAn entity which attempts to control a specified arena by violence or threats.

   moral mafia

   3 more examples

   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

   Since the victory of gadgetry is "inevitable," you might as well come along quietly and let us smother you in speed and convenience, says the digital mafia.

   2000, Senator Robert Torricelli, Andrew Carroll, In Our Own Words: Extraordinary Speeches of the American Century, page 432

   I can scarcely leave the apartment without being engulfed by journalists, not to mention the fucking left-wing activists and the multicultural mafia that assailed me with spitting and verbal abuse the last time I ventured out […]

   2019, Anne Holt, In Dust and Ashes, page 83

alternative obsolete Maffia

1. The Mob: any particular mafia, mentioned uniquely within the discussion's established or implicit context, usually and especially the Sicilian-Italian–Italian-American one (especially in American English) but occasionally others (e.g., the Russian one, the Japanese one).
   1. The international criminal organization of Sicilian origin operating in Italy and the United States.

      Synonyms: Mob, Cosa Nostra

   2. 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

alternative obsolete Maffia

1. gamesA 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".