Glossary¶

Sicilian, Italian-American, and Mafia terms as the trilogy uses them — with notes on which ones Puzo invented.

The organization¶

Don — Honorific for a man of respect, from Latin dominus. Not a rank; a form of address. Vito is Don Corleone to petitioners and Pop to his sons, and the film is precise about who uses which.

Godfather — Both a sacramental office (padrino: sponsor at a baptism) and, in this fiction, the head of a family. The trilogy insists on both meanings simultaneously — see The Baptism Sequence.

Consigliere — Counselor to the Don. Sits outside the chain of command, advises rather than orders, and reports only to the boss. Tom Hagen holds the office and is repeatedly reminded he can hold nothing else.

Underboss — Second in command. Sonny, then Fredo in name only, then Al Neri.

Caporegime (capo) — A captain running a crew of soldiers in a defined territory. Clemenza had the Bronx and Long Island; Tessio had Brooklyn.

Soldato (soldier) — A made member at the bottom of the structure. Paulie Gatto, Rocco Lampone, Willi Cicci.

Made man — A formally initiated member. The trilogy never depicts an initiation ceremony, which is notable, since one demonstrably exists in the real organization.

"Making your bones" — Committing your first murder for the organization, and thereby establishing standing. I made my bones when you were going out with cheerleaders — Moe Greene, being fatally impolite.

Associate — Someone who works with a family without being made. Non-Italians can only ever be associates, which is Tom Hagen's permanent ceiling.

The Commission — The governing body of the American Mafia, established in 1931 to arbitrate disputes and prevent open warfare. Vito's Five Families peace conference is a version of it, and the film stages it as a board meeting because that is what it was. See Real-World Mafia.

The Five Families — The New York organization: Corleone, Tattaglia, Barzini, Cuneo, Stracci. In reality: Bonanno, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese, Lucchese. See Barzini & the Five Families.

Codes and customs¶

Omertà — The code of silence. Not merely refusing to inform, but a positive obligation to settle grievances outside the state entirely. Its violation is the worst available offense, which is why Frank Pentangeli's testimony and recantation carry the weight they do.

Vendetta — A blood feud, inherited and obligatory. Vito's return to Sicily in 1925 to kill Don Ciccio is a vendetta discharged thirty-four years after it was incurred. In Part III, Joey Zasa formally declares one.

Cent'anni — "A hundred years." A toast, wishing long life. The last words of Coda reframe it: when the Sicilians wish you cent'anni… a Sicilian never forgets. A blessing and a threat in one phrase.

"Going to the mattresses" — Going to war. Crews move into safe apartments, sleeping on mattresses on the floor, and normal life stops. Clemenza explains it as routine housekeeping: it has to happen every five or ten years to get rid of the bad blood.

"Sleeps with the fishes" — Dead, and dumped in water. Delivered via a fish wrapped in a bulletproof vest — a message with no words in it, which is the point.

The kiss of death — A formal kiss pronouncing a sentence. Michael's kiss to Fredo in Havana is this, and is simultaneously a real kiss from a grieving brother. See Michael's Arc.

"The thunderbolt" (il colpo di fulmine) — Love at first sight, understood in Sicily as something closer to a medical event than a feeling. What happens to Michael when he sees Apollonia.

"An offer he can't refuse" — Coercion delivered as courtesy. Vito's formulation, and the trilogy's central rhetorical move: the violence is never named, and everyone understands it perfectly.

Business¶

Genco Pura Olive Oil Company — The Corleone family's legitimate front, named for Genco Abbandando, Vito's boyhood friend and first consigliere.

The Black Hand (La Mano Nera) — Early-1900s extortion practice in Italian-American neighborhoods: an anonymous letter threatening violence, signed with a black handprint. Not an organization — a method, used by many independent operators. Don Fanucci in Part II is a Black Hand extortionist, and his significance is that he is a loud man with a knife and no structure behind him, which is exactly why Vito can remove him.

Buffer — An intermediary who insulates the boss from an order. The entire logic of Michael's later career.

Skim — Casino revenue removed before it's counted, and therefore before it's taxed. The Las Vegas and Havana business in Part II.

Family¶

Padrone — A patron, or a boss in the older sense; a man who provides work and expects loyalty.

Compare / comare (goombah, goomah in Italian-American slang) — Godfather / godmother, extended in usage to close family friends. The relationship Johnny Fontane has to Vito, which is why he can weep in the man's study.

Capisce? — "Understand?" Frequently rendered capeesh in Italian-American speech.

Infamità — An outrage; a shameful, dishonorable act. What Vito calls Sollozzo's proposal.

Stronzo / finocchio / cafone — Insults available in these films, roughly: shit, an anti-gay slur, and a boor or peasant. Vito uses finocchio about Johnny Fontane's weeping, which is one of the film's less-quoted moments.

What Puzo invented¶

This is the important entry, and the one most people get wrong.

Mario Puzo had never met a gangster. He said so repeatedly. The Mafia in The Godfather was assembled from newspaper files and the Kefauver and Valachi hearing transcripts.

Which means some of the vocabulary everyone now associates with organized crime came out of the novel and the film, not the other way around:

"Make him an offer he can't refuse" — Puzo's phrase. It has since entered general English and has been used, unironically, by actual criminals.
"Going to the mattresses" — Real practice; the phrase's currency is Puzo's.
"Consigliere" as a widely understood English word — the office is real; its public familiarity is the film's doing.
The godfather as the standard term for a boss — the real usage existed, but its dominance is downstream of a 1969 novel.

The best-documented consequence: after the film, real mobsters began talking like the film. FBI surveillance recordings from the 1970s onward capture members using Puzo's phrasing and, in some cases, explicitly citing the movie as a model of how to conduct themselves.

A fiction written by a man with no access became a script that the real thing performed. See Real-World Mafia § What Puzo invented.