- a hierarchically structured secret organization allegedly engaged in smuggling, racketeering, trafficking in narcotics, and other criminal activities in the United States, Italy, and elsewhere.
- any criminal organization viewed as similar to the Mafia: The movie concerns a low-life gambler who borrows money from the French mafia for a seat at a high-stakes poker game.
- any small but powerful or influential group in an organization or field; an inordinately prominent and controlling clique: It was difficult to be the only woman involved in this macho, musical mafia.
- (in Sicily)
- a popular attitude of hostility to legal restraint and to the law, often manifesting itself in criminal acts.
- a 19th-century secret society, similar to the Camorra in Naples, associated with this attitude toward law and crime.
- an international secret organization founded in Sicily, probably in opposition to tyranny. It developed into a criminal organization and in the late 19th century was carried to the US by Italian immigrants
- any group considered to resemble the Mafia
