Dictionary

Mob en · PROPN

Etymology

From the common noun sense, capitalized and used as a proper name.

Meanings

1. The Mafia: any particular mafia, mentioned uniquely within the discussion's established or implicit context, usually and especially the Sicilian–Italian–Italian-American one (especially in American English) but occasionally others (e.g., the Russian one, the Japanese one).
   • The campfires provide enough plain old regular visible light to show this sorry affair for what it is: a bunch of demented Boy Scouts, a jamboree without merit badges or hygiene. With the IR supered on top of the visible, she can also see vague, spectral red faces out in the shadows where her unassisted eyes would only see darkness. These new Knight Visions cost her a big wad of her Mob drug-running money. Just the kind of thing Mom had in mind when she insisted Y.T. get a part-time job. 1992, Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash, page 243:
2. The masses, especially the 'great unwashed masses': the general population, or rabble, viewed as one mob of unruly, disorganized people predisposed to violence and malevolence.
   • tempted to ascribe Poe's narrators' mentions of the Mob to misanthropy in the author himself

Forms