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Sep 16, 2015 · Why are members of the Italian mafia treated more like celebrities than unsavory criminals? Part of the answer is historical.
- AMC
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- AMC
Nov 25, 2023 · It’s a realm where honor and violence coexist, where loyalty is paramount, and betrayal is unforgivable. The psychological journey of a Mafia member is marked by a constant negotiation between personal morals and the demands of ‘La Cosa Nostra.’.
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soldier: the bottom-level member of an organized crime family who is made. spring cleaning: cleaning up, hiding or getting rid of evidence. straighten out, getting straightened out: becoming a made guy. tax: to take a percentage of someone's earnings.
- Gangster
- Goodfella
- Godfather
- Mob
- Mafia
- Omertà
- Black Hand
- Made Man
- Sleeps with The Fishes
- Bada-Bing
The word gangster has been around since at least 1884, according to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). It combines gang, a 12th-century term that originally referred to the action of walking (hence gangway, orroad), and the suffix -ster. As for the popularity of the word, the use of gangster soared between 1920 and 1941, presumably with the rise ...
“We always called each other good fellas,” Henry Hill says. “Like you said to somebody ... he's all right. He's a goodfella. He's one of us.” Goodfella began as the 15th-century goodfellow, basically someone who knew how to have a good time. A hundred years later, the word came to mean “thief,” which would be a convenient segue to the 1964 meaning ...
The original meaning of godfather, a male godparent, is from the 13th century, while it also came to mean “an influential man” around 1830. As for godfather referring to a mafia leader, in a 1997 interview, Godfatherauthor Mario Puzo claims to have invented the term: “It was never used for a criminal figure ... The term didn’t exist before I used i...
The 17th-century meanings of mob refer to a disorderly crowd or a clique or gang. Around 1826, the word came to mean a gang of criminals, especially thieves (a swell mobwas a posse of well-dressed pickpockets), and in the late 1920s, meant a gang of violent criminals, a crime organization, and the mafia. The word mob is a shortening of mobile, mean...
In Sicilian, mafia means boldness or bravado, and evolved to mean a sense of hostility to the law, and then, by the latter half of the 19th century, a Sicilian secret society of criminals. The word first appears in English around 1866, coinciding with the immigration of Sicilians and other Italiansto the U.S. in the 1800s. Another term for the mafi...
Where mafia means bravado, omertàmeans humility. Omertà, a dialectal alteration of the Italian umilta, or humility, first appeared in English around 1864 and referred to the mafia’s code of honor and loyalty. By the 1970s, the word had also come to mean a code of silence.
The Black Hand was a popular name for secret societiesback in the day. There was the 19th-century Spanish society of anarchists, an early 20th-century group of military Serbians, and of course the Italian secret society in 1880s America, most likely a precursor to the mafia. By around 1904, Black Handhad become synonymous with the society's extorti...
The original sense of made man was someone who had it made—in other words, had guaranteed success and happiness. Made manmeaning someone who had been officially inducted as a mafia member first appeared in print around 1950, but had probably been in use well before then. In a 2009 article, Victoria Gotti, sister of mob boss John, describes John’s s...
Upon receiving a dead fish wrapped in the bulletproof vest of a trusted enforcer, Godfather henchman Clemenza says, “It's a Sicilian message. It means Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes.” In other words, he's gone to the great cannolishop in the sky. While sleeps with the fishes is quintessential Godfather, the phrase has been in use since well befo...
“You've gotta get up close like this and bada-bing!” Sonny tells Michael in The Godfather. “You blow their brains all over your nice Ivy League suit.” Bada-bing implies something that either happens suddenly or easily and in a way that’s expected. The OED includes many variations in addition to the plain old bada-bing (which was apparently first us...
The term, translated "uncle," is one of affection and respect for a senior member of the underworld. A glossary of slang terms and gangland colloquialisms related to crime and to American Mafia history.
The kiss of death (Italian: Il bacio della morte) is the sign given by a mafioso boss or caporegime that signifies that a member of the crime family has been marked for death, usually as a result of some perceived betrayal. Complete none-sense rooted in Hollyweird. [1] It is unclear how much is based on fact and how much on the imagination of ...
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Unsavory is an adjective used to describe something that is unpleasant, distasteful, disagreeable, or unpalatable. It can refer to food that tastes bad, situations that are morally offensive, or people who are disreputable or socially unacceptable.
