omertà

Meanings

1. A code of silence amongst members of the Mafia that forbids divulging insider secrets to law enforcement, often also followed outside of the organization for fear of retaliation.
2. Any code of silence (especially about something illegal or secret), or refusal to talk openly about something.

Etymology

PIE word *dʰéǵʰōm Unadapted borrowing from Italian omertà; further etymology uncertain—the following have been suggested: * from Spanish hombredad (“manliness”) (archaic), with the spelling aligned with Sicilian omu (“man”). Hombredad is derived from hombre (“man”) + -edad (variant of -dad (suffix forming nouns denoting a state of being)). However, the expected Sicilian output from a Spanish borrowing would have been *ummirità ~ *ummiritati. * from Sicilian umirtà (“humility”) (referring to the Mafia code’s requirement of obedience to the leader), from Latin humilitās (“obedience, submission”), from humilis (“humble; abject, submissive”) + -tās (suffix forming feminine abstract nouns denoting a state of being); with humilis from humus (“floor, ground; earth, soil”) + -ilis (suffix forming an adjective of relation). If so, the English word is a doublet of humility. However, the Oxford English Dictionary takes the view that this is “not well supported by the geographical distribution of the word”.