A ''cosca'' (; pl. ''cosche'' in Italian and ''coschi'' in Sicilian), in Sicily, is a clan or

Sicilian Mafia The Sicilian Mafia, also simply known as the Mafia and frequently referred to as Cosa nostra (, ; "our thing") by its members, is an Italian Mafia- terrorist-type organized crime syndicate and criminal society originating in the region of Sici ...

crime family A crime family is a unit of an organized crime syndicate, particularly in Italian organized crime and especially in the Sicilian Mafia and Italian American Mafia, often operating within a specific geographic territory or a specific set of activit ...

led by a capo. The equivalent in the

'Ndrangheta The 'Ndrangheta (, , ) is a prominent Italian Mafia-type organized crime syndicate and secret society, criminal society based in the peninsular and mountainous region of Calabria and dating back to the late 18th century. It is considered one of ...

in Calabria is the '' 'ndrina''.

Etymology

A ''cosca'' is the crown of spiny, closely folded leaves on plants such as the

artichoke The globe artichoke ('' Cynara cardunculus'' var. ''scolymus'' ),Rottenberg, A., and D. Zohary, 1996: "The wild ancestry of the cultivated artichoke." Genet. Res. Crop Evol. 43, 53–58. also known by the names French artichoke and green artich ...

or the

thistle Thistle is the common name of a group of flowering plants characterised by leaves with sharp prickles on the margins, mostly in the family Asteraceae. Prickles can also occur all over the planton the stem and on the flat parts of the leaves ...

, which symbolizes the tightness of relationships between mafiosi.

References

* Blok, Anton (1974/1988). ''The Mafia of a Sicilian village 1860-1960. A study of violent peasant entrepreneurs'', Long Grove (IL): Waveland Press, * Dickie, John (2004).
Cosa Nostra. A history of the Sicilian Mafia
', London: Coronet, * Servadio, Gaia (1976). ''Mafioso. A history of the Mafia from its origins to the present day'', London: Secker & Warburg,

External links

{{Mafia Organized crime terminology Italian words and phrases