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This week's theme: slang/informal terms.
goombah (GOOM-bah) noun
1. Friend, accomplice, or crony.
2. Godfather or mentor.
3. Gangster or Mafioso.
[Dialectal pronunciation of Italian compa, a clipping of compare
(godfather, friend, or accomplice), from Latin compater, from
com- (with) + pater (father).]
-Anu Garg (garg wordsmith.org)
"It was his goombahs. It's the first rule in the underworld: It is not
your enemies you have to worry about, it's your friends."
Boston's Mobsters a Dysfunctional Family; Boston Globe; Jan 11, 1995.
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find themselves alone. -Jean de la Bruyere, essayist and moralist
(1645-1696)
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Pronunciation:
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http://wordsmith.org/words/goombah.ram
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