英和和英

語源

See Mafia. The sense "entity which attempts to control a specified arena" makes an analogy to crime-syndicate mafias' attempts to control certain kinds of business in the regions in which they exist.

発音

• (米国発音) IPA: /ˈmɑfi.ə/
• (英国発音) IPA: /ˈmæfi.ə/

名詞

mafia (plural mafias)

1. A hierarchically structured secret organisation engaged in illegal activities like distribution of narcotics, gambling and extortion.
2. A crime syndicate.
3. A trusted group of associates, as of a political leader.
4. (in compounds) An entity which attempts to control a specified arena by violence or threats.

   moral mafia

   • 1994, Francis Wheen, Lord Gnome's Literary Companion, page 161:

     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.

   • 2000, Senator Robert Torricelli, Andrew Carroll, In Our Own Words: Extraordinary Speeches of the American Century, page 432:

     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.

   • 2019, Anne Holt, In Dust and Ashes, page 83:

     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 […]

派生語