How do you use the word "mafia" in a sentence?

Q: How do you use the word "mafia" in a sentence?

Here are real-life examples of using "mafia": The Mafia uses legitimate business operations as a front. The trial lawyers couldn't get past the Mafia leader's stonewalling tactics.

Mafia Meaning

/ˈmɑfi.ə/

Definition, CEFR level C1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.

Definition

nounA hierarchically structured secret organisation engaged in illegal activities like distribution of narcotics, gambling and extortion.

nameThe 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)., The international criminal organization of Sicilian origin operating in Italy and the United States.

Sentence Examples

The Mafia uses legitimate business operations as a front.

The trial lawyers couldn't get past the Mafia leader's stonewalling tactics.

In Germany, the Italian mafia is an underestimated problem.

CEFR Practice Quiz

The illegal organization that controlled the city's underworld was a powerful ____.

CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)

The organized crime group, known as the ____, had a significant influence on the entire city's underworld.

Word Origin & History

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.

Literary Quotations & Historical Citations

"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:

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