How to Use mafioso in a Sentence
mafioso
noun-
Bill Burr is Don, a returning mafioso, back from prison.
—Andy Hoglund, EW.com, 11 Oct. 2020
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Every great mafioso album needs a great crime caper of a song.
—Troy L. Smith, cleveland, 13 Apr. 2021
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Meanwhile, in Russia, oligarchs and mafioso were on the ascent.
—Craig Unger, vanityfair.com, 13 Aug. 2017
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Once the mafioso is dead, Oraetta uses her mouth to remove a ring from his cold dead hand, and places it on her own finger.
—Nick Schager, EW.com, 28 Sep. 2020
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That didn’t stop him from continuing to report on the mafia and taking a number of the mafiosi who threatened him to court.
—Gaia Pianigiani, New York Times, 20 May 2018
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This was always the mafioso-like logic at the heart of Trumpism, and its latest expression could not be more garishly clear.
—Jacob Silverman, The New Republic, 7 July 2021
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To prepare for the role of Dickie, a mafioso whose charisma conceals a jumble of violent and tender urges, Nivola spent months with a dialect coach.
—Naomi Fry, The New Yorker, 18 Sep. 2021
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Some wineries will relish the opportunity to be seen as the mafioso’s beverage of choice.
—Esther Mobley, San Francisco Chronicle, 9 Feb. 2023
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Where Biggie rapped as a mafioso who had lieutenants working for him, Black Rob talked about having a small crew of dudes that would rob folks in underground tunnels.
—Jayson Buford, Rolling Stone, 20 Apr. 2021
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The movie stars Jennifer Tilly as a mafioso’s girlfriend, and Gina Gershon as the ex-convict hired to do renovations on their apartment.
—Aimée Lutkin, ELLE, 7 June 2022
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Paul Sorvino could play more than a mobster, even though mafioso roles became standards in his prolific career.
—Los Angeles Times, 25 July 2022
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Its portrayal of the LAPD is a sordid one, in which the police have become a mafioso-like organization willing to do anything for the highest bidder.
—Sophie Gilbert, The Atlantic, 25 June 2020
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Clean-cut, with a penchant for oversized glasses and black clothing, Shulaya, who was from the former Soviet Republic of Georgia, looked more tech bro than mafioso.
—Garrett Graff, Longreads, 5 June 2018
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The Vatican/mafioso entanglements remain murky and a little flat.
—Michael Phillips, chicagotribune.com, 3 Dec. 2020
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Though Dickie never appeared on the show, he was occasionally mentioned with admiration as a wild-card mafioso of decades past.
—David Sims, The Atlantic, 28 Sep. 2021
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Bill Camp is marvelously reptilian as a Brooklyn mafioso who lures them into an uneasy cross-borough alliance.
—San Diego Union-Tribune, 8 Aug. 2019
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Get our daily newsletter Gangs are nothing new: bikers and Balkan mafiosi have traded drugs and occasional bullets in Sweden since the early 1990s.
—The Economist, 8 Mar. 2018
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Ghostface has a knack for emotional honesty and upbeat absurdism that’s matched by Raekwon’s sterner, harsher mafioso tales.
—Craig Jenkins, Vulture, 3 June 2021
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While De Niro has a somewhat rough time shifting between macho mafioso and weepy sentimentalist, Crystal is more consistent as feisty Ben.
—David Hunter, The Hollywood Reporter, 5 Mar. 2020
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Unsurprisingly, as with many post-Soviet regimes in places like Uzbekistan, Russia, and Kazakhstan, the notion of the first family as mafiosi has gained increasing cachet over the past few years.
—Casey Michel, New Republic, 14 July 2017
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Translation: Expect an old-school meets new-school Vegas vibe in a room packed with local Vegas power players and visiting high rollers looking for a mafioso-like trattoria cum steakhouse.
—Travel + Leisure, 12 Mar. 2022
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While appearing to be ‘revolutionary brethren in arms’, Maduro grants them certain powers and criminal territories to run as great mafiosi do.
—Antonio Maria Delgado, miamiherald, 22 June 2018
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When, in 1971, the Italian government banished its worst mafiosi to live on Filicudi, the islanders, via total noncooperation, sent them packing.
—Antonia Quirke, Condé Nast Traveler, 22 Aug. 2019
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Haldwell's student life is predicated upon the coexistence of these quasi-mafioso families.
—Isaac Feldberg, Fortune, 17 Apr. 2020
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Iran’s reluctance to negotiate is driven by Washington’s mafioso approach to diplomacy.
—NBC News, 29 Nov. 2021
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But under looming deadlines, when reporters and editors delayed in finishing stories, Ms. Ferguson-Rohrer was known for firing off intra-office missives that were caustic and sometimes profane, with a certain mafioso persuasiveness.
—Adam Bernstein, Washington Post, 18 Aug. 2020
Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'mafioso.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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