Mafioso
nounUS /ˌmɑfiˈoʊˌsoʊ/
Etymology Borrowed from Italian mafioso, from Sicilian mafiusu.
1
A member of the Mafia.
- Phil put his arms around him. Drew him in close, pressed his cheek to Dane's the way the Mafiosi in the fifties would kiss somebody right before they punched his ticket.2006, Tom Piccirilli, Headstone City, Random House, →ISBN, retrieved 08 Dec 2021, page 189:
- “Sometimes, I swear you have no idea about the concept of money. Only you could give a one-of-a-kind ring to a female Mafioso, so casually.”2010, Jess Phillips, Roxy’s Sequel, [Morrisville, N.C.]: Lulu.com, →ISBN, page 176:
1 more example
- “As the library grows in popularity, the community gets stronger and she gets more powerful. She ultimately goes from this timorous lady to a local kingpin. Kind of like a female Mafioso. And then someone crosses her so she has a vengeance to play out.”2019, Michelle Frances, The Temp, New York, N.Y.: Kensington Books, →ISBN, page 301:
2
A male member of the Mafia.
- The widow of one murdered Mafioso gave her son the bloody jacket that her husband had been killed in. […] So far there has not been a Mafiosa who has made it to the top on her own.1998, World Press Review, volume 45, page 43, columns 1–2:
- Is there a feminine for mafiosos? Mafiosas? Because apparently that’s what we are, the Mothers’ Mafia.2006 March 21, Kathleen Gilles Seidel, chapter 2, in A Most Uncommon Degree of Popularity, New York, N.Y.: St. Martin’s Press, →ISBN, page 33:
2 more examples
- Ninetta had grown up in a Mafia village, her family was Mafia, and she had fallen in love with a Mafioso. And she was a Mafiosa herself.2015, Attilio Bolzoni, Giuseppe D’Avanzo, translated by Shaun Whiteside, The Boss of Bosses: The Life of the Infamous Totò Riina, Dreaded Head of the Sicilian Mafia, London: Orion Books, →ISBN:
- Plotted from the beginning fitting a plan for a Mafioso dictator / Never deviating from the decision to be the first for a throwaway bride / Whims and whimsical thinking guides the denial of the Mafiosa.2019, Rosemarie M. Neilson, “The Throwaway Bride”, in Terrible Trauma Like a Poem, Bloomington, Ind.: AuthorHouse, →ISBN: