Definition of "mafias" [mafias]

• Plural form of mafia. (noun)

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• "Throughout the early 1990s "mafias" that had grown out of the Soviet-era black market were quickly building up capital -- and power."
• "The Communist Party is losing its grip, and the only institutions that function effectively are the various "mafias" that dominate both crime and commerce."
• "For just when police from Bologna to Brooklyn believe that they may have a grip on the Sicilian Mafia and its cousins, just when Pablo Escobar has been gunned down, new "mafias" have popped up as if the earth bad been sown with dragons 'teeth."