Translation
mafia
Word origin
An international borrowing of Italian mafia, first recorded in Sicilian as mafia in the 1860s. The origin of the Sicilian word itself is genuinely unsettled.
- Origin
- Italian, from Sicilian
- Root
- mafia
- English cognates
- mafia, mafioso
Other proposed origins
- One long-standing account traces it to Arabic, variously to mahyas ('boastful swagger') or marfud ('rejected'), from the centuries of Arabic rule in Sicily. (Arabic, mahyas)
- Another holds that the Sicilian adjective simply meant bold or self-assured, and that the criminal sense was attached to it later by outsiders. (Sicilian)
Examples
.
The film tells the story of one family in the mafia.
.
The police looked for the mafia's money for ten years.
.
Nobody in the village wanted to talk about the mafia.
is the ordinary international word and it behaves like any other -o noun: , , o for a member, mafia for the adjective. Esperanto imports it whole, as it imports and , because there is nothing here for a learner to build out of pieces already owned.
Worth knowing that the word travels badly in the plural. In Italian and in English it names one specific Sicilian organisation and then, loosely, any organised criminal network anywhere; Esperanto follows the same slide, so rusa is unremarkable usage even though the metaphor has stopped being literal. If you want to stay narrow, is a gang without the Sicilian freight.
Where this fits
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mafio: worksheet, infographic and listicle
Free printable study downloads for the Esperanto word "mafio" (mafia): a worksheet with the answer key built in, an infographic, and a sentence listicle. Open any one to view, print or save.
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Start your free weekThis word is part of lesson 45.