What is "mafia"

organized crime \organized crime\ n. Groups of persons organized for illegal purposes, such as bootlegging, conducting illegal gambling, loansharking, extortion, etc.; -- a general term encompassing most forms of criminal groups, but especially those that are consolidated into ``families'' more or less recognizing each other's different regions of operation; sometimes considered synonymous with the mafia or the syndicate.

Syndicate \Syn"di*cate\, n. [Cf. F. syndicat, LL. syndicatus.]

1. The office or jurisdiction of a syndic; a council, or body of syndics.
   --Bp. Burnet.

2. An association of persons officially authorized to undertake some duty or to negotiate some business; also, an association of persons who combine to carry out, on their own account, a financial or industrial project; as, a syndicate of bankers formed to take up and dispose of an entire issue of government bonds.

3. A more or less organized association of criminals controlling some aspects of criminal activity, in a specific area or country-wide; -- used loosely as a synonym for organized crime or the mafia.

4. (Journalism) a commercial organization that purchases various journalistic items, such as articles, columns, or comic strips, from their individual creators, and resells them to newspapers or other periodicals for simultaneous publication over a wide area.

1875, from Italian Mafia "Sicilian secret society of criminals" (the prevailing sense outside Sicily), earlier, "spirit of hostility to the law and its ministers," from Italian (Sicilian) mafia "boldness, bravado," probably from Arabic mahjas "aggressive, boasting, bragging." Or perhaps from Old French mafler "to gluttonize, devour." A member is a mafioso (1870), fem. mafiosa, plural mafiosi.

n. 1 A crime syndicate. 2 A trusted group of associates, as of a political leader. 3 (context in compound terms such as "moral mafia" English) An entity which attempts to control a specified arena.

Mafia, also known as Werewolf, is a party game created in the USSR by Dmitry Davidoff in 1986 modelling a conflict between an informed minority, the mafia, and an uninformed majority, the innocents. At the start of the game, each player is secretly assigned a role affiliated with one of these teams. The game has two alternating phases: night, during which the mafia may covertly "murder" an innocent, and day, in which surviving players debate the identities of the mafia and vote to eliminate a suspect. Play continues until all of the mafia have been eliminated or until the mafia outnumbers the innocents.

A mafia is a type of organized crime syndicate whose primary activities are protection racketeering, the arbitration of disputes between criminals, and the organizing and oversight of illegal agreements and transactions. Mafias often engage in secondary activities such as gambling, loan sharking, drug-trafficking, and fraud.

The term was originally applied to the Sicilian Mafia, but has since expanded to encompass other organizations of similar methods and purpose, e.g., "the Russian Mafia" or "the Japanese Mafia". The term is applied informally by the press and public; the criminal organizations themselves have their own terms (e.g. the Sicilian Mafia calls itself "Cosa Nostra" and the Japanese Mafia calls itself " yakuza"). When used alone and without any qualifier, "Mafia" or "the Mafia" typically refers to either the Sicilian Mafia or the Italian-American Mafia, and sometimes Italian organized crime in general (e.g. Camorra, 'Ndrangheta, Sacra Corona Unita, etc.)

Mafia is the sixth studio album by heavy metal band Black Label Society, released March 8, 2005. It is one of the band's most commercially successful releases selling over 250,000 copies in the U.S. The track "In This River" was written before the death of Zakk Wylde's friend and fellow guitarist Dimebag Darrell, but it has since been dedicated to him.

Mafia is a 1993 Malayalam film directed by Shaji Kailas. Scripted by Renji Panicker, with Suresh Gopi, Janardhanan, Tiger Prabhakar, Babu Antony, Vijayaraghavan, Vikram Kennedy and Geetha in lead roles, this film revolved around Bangalore underworld.

'Mafia ' is a 1996 Hindi-language Indian arthouse action film directed by Aziz Sejawal and starring Dharmendra, Aditya Pancholi, Somy Ali, Gulshan Grover, Mohan Joshi and Raza Murad.

Mafia is the first EP by Italian technical death metal band Fleshgod Apocalypse. The album was released on May 18, 2010, through Willowtip Records. It was recorded, mixed, mastered and produced by Stefano "Saul" Morabito.

Mafia is a third-person shooter video game developed by Illusion Softworks (now 2K Czech) and published by Gathering of Developers. The game was released for Microsoft Windows in August 2002, and later ported to the PlayStation 2 and the Xbox consoles in 2004, in North America and Europe. The game allows the player to take on the role of Tommy Angelo, a mafioso who has to accomplish various missions in order to advance in the game.

Mafia received positive reviews for the Windows version, with critics praising the game for its realism, while the PlayStation 2 and Xbox versions of the game received mixed reviews. A sequel, Mafia II by 2K Czech, was released in August 2010, and a third game titled Mafia III by Hangar 13 is scheduled for a 2016 release.

Mafia is the debut studio album by Romanian hip hop group B.U.G. Mafia, released September 20, 1995 on local Bucharest-based label Amma Sound. Production for the album was handled by group member and founder Tataee, with various composers and keyboardists giving co-production. Heavily influenced by N.W.A. and Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, the album has been viewed as the pioneering record of gangsta rap in Romania. With its ever-present profanity and violent lyrics, it helped to give birth to this then-new genre of music in Romania. As hip hop music was quite new in Romania at the time, the album attracted many rock fans, who appreciated the group's aggressive approach towards music.

In spite of poor sound quality and practically no professional promotion, Mafia achieved moderate success and quite favorable reviews. The album is still known for being the third hip hop album to be released in Romania by a record label. It had 15 tracks and featured guest performances from M&G, Marijuana, Coco, Vlad "Ben" Blându and actress Rona Hartner.

"Mafia" is the 6th episode of the sixth season of the U.S. comedy series The Office and the show's 106th episode overall and originally aired on October 15, 2009 on NBC.

The series—presented as if it were a real documentary—depicts the everyday lives of office employees in the Scranton, Pennsylvania, branch of the fictional Dunder Mifflin Paper Company. In this episode, Michael Scott ( Steve Carell) becomes convinced that an insurance salesman visiting the office is a part of the mafia, and Dwight Schrute ( Rainn Wilson) and Andy Bernard ( Ed Helms) accompany Michael to a meeting with him. Meanwhile, Kevin Malone ( Brian Baumgartner) accidentally cancels Jim's credit card, while Jim Halpert ( John Krasinski) and Pam Halpert ( Jenna Fischer) are on their honeymoon in Puerto Rico.

It was written by Brent Forrester and directed by David Rogers. "Mafia" received positive reviews from critics and was viewed by an estimated 8.03 million viewers and received a 4.1/10 in the 18-49 demographic.

Mafia is a term used to refer to certain kinds of family- or culture-based organized crime enterprises. However, the term originally applied only to the Sicilian Mafia, and when used alone and without any qualifier, "Mafia" or "the Mafia" typically refers to either the Sicilian Mafia or its American offshoot, the Italian-American Mafia, and may also refer to Italian organized crime in general. It may also refer to:

Mafia is an upcoming Bengali Language drama film directed by Raj Chakraborty and produced by Shree Venkatesh Films and Grassroot Entertainment.

Mafia is a series of action-adventure video games developed by 2K Czech (formerly Illusion Softworks) with the upcoming release by Hangar 13, and published by 2K Games.

Games in the Mafia series are set in fictional locales modeled after American cities, and usually take place in a historical setting, from Great Depression-era Lost Heaven in the original game, to 1960s New Orleans in Mafia III. Gameplay focuses on an open world where the player can choose missions to progress an overall story, as well as engaging in side activities, albeit in a more linear manner. The Freeride Extreme game mode in The City of Lost Heaven and expansion packs for Mafia II, however, allow players to trigger missions from the open world.

The three games in the Mafia series focus around different protagonists who attempt to rise (and subsequently fall out of favour or are disillusioned with the illicit lifestyle) through the ranks of the criminal underworld, although their motives for doing so vary in each game. The antagonists are commonly characters who have betrayed the protagonist or his organisation, or characters who have the most impact impeding the protagonist's progress.