mafia

/[ˈmafja]/ noun

Letters

5 characters

Frequency Rank

#6,325

in Spanish word usage

Misspellings

6

tracked variants

Confusables

20

similar word pairs

mafia is aSpanishnoun. It means: Organización criminal de origen siciliano, con estructura organizacional y códigos de honor estrictos. Pronounced [ˈmafja]. It ranks #6,325 in Spanish word frequency. Often confused with mia and mai.

Key facts for mafia
PropertyValue
Headwordmafia
LanguageSpanish
Part of speechNoun
IPA[ˈmafja]
Letters5
Frequency rank#6,325
Misspellings tracked6
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

Position of mafia in Spanish word frequency (lower rank = more common)

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The Spanish entry for mafia is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as [ˈmafja]. Corpus data places it at rank #6,325 in overall Spanish word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 6 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 6 documented wrong-spelling variants for mafia, with forms such as "amfia", "mafai", and "maffia". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "mia", "mai", "mala", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct Spanish form is mafia, spelled M-A-F-I-A, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Organización criminal de origen siciliano, con estructura organizacional y códigos de honor estrictos.
  2. 2
    Por extensión, cualquier organización criminal.
  3. 3
    Grupo de personas que se organiza veladamente para proteger sus intereses.
  4. 4
    Grupo de personas que controla completamente una actividad o negocio impidiendo cualquier competencia.
  5. 5
    Acción que lleva al engaño a una persona para aprovecharse de ella.
  6. 6
    Juego de cartas en donde secretamente uno o más jugadores deben hacer de mafia (asesinos). En cada ronda estos deben eliminar a alguno de los demás jugadores, y luego, entre los restantes, se hace una votación para explusar al principal sospechoso. Termina cuando se logra echar a todos los que son mafia o bien cuando queda la misma cantidad de mafias que de jugadores corrientes.

Synonyms

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: amfia,mafai,maffia,maifa,mfaia,mmafia

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

Relative frequency of common misspelling types for mafia

Misspelling Variants of "mafia"

amfia5mafai5maffia6maifa5mfaia5mmafia6
Misspelling Variants of "mafia"

Frequency rank: #6,325 in Spanish

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "mafia"?
"mafia" is spelled M-A-F-I-A. The IPA pronunciation is [ˈmafja].
What does "mafia" mean?
As a noun, "mafia" means: Organización criminal de origen siciliano, con estructura organizacional y códigos de honor estrictos.
What words are commonly confused with "mafia"?
"mafia" is commonly confused with "mia", "mai", "mala". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "mafia"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "mafia" is [ˈmafja]. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "mafia" come from?
"mafia" is a Spanish word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Nearby Spanish words

Other entries that begin with the letter M in our Spanish index:

Explore PlainSpell

Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.