# How did "The Mob" come to mean organized crime? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 4, 2009, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-mob-come-to-mean-organized-crime/505273 "2009-08-04T06:58:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2009, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-mob-come-to-mean-organized-crime/505273/1 "2009-08-04T06:58:01Z")
If you think about it, the term “the mob” doesn’t really make sense in reference to organized crime. A criminal organization is by definition the opposite of a mob; it’s a small elite group, as opposed to a large crowd of common people which is what “mob” literally means. So how did the term come to mean what it now does? ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2009, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-mob-come-to-mean-organized-crime/505273/2 "2009-08-04T07:10:34Z")
I asked a similar question once that got some good responses. I was going to say that it was a while ago but it looks like it was a really long time ago. It doesn’t directly answer your question but it should help. “What is the difference between “The Mob” and the Mafia?” [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=55674&highlight=mafia](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=55674&highlight=mafia) ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2009, 8:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-mob-come-to-mean-organized-crime/505273/3 "2009-08-04T08:41:18Z")
Here, the ‘mob’ always meant the Army. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2009, 10:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-mob-come-to-mean-organized-crime/505273/4 "2009-08-04T10:31:18Z")
It’s a natural progression from the original sense of the word mob. Initially mob was a contraction of the Latin phrase _mobile vulgus_, the fickle crowd. First cite for this in OED is 1688, under the definition ‘a disorderly or riotous crowd, a rabble’. Clearly it’s not a large jump in sense to apply the term to a rabble of criminals, and this specific sense has an earliest cite of 1826 in OED. > [@](#): > > 1. a. A gang of criminals, esp. thieves. > > 1826 in G. C. Ingleton True Patriots All (1952) 109 The trial of Brady’s mob. A century later we find it being used in the originally American sense of a gang of _organized_ criminals. > [@](#): > > 1. b. spec. orig. U.S. An organized association or gang of violent criminals; an organization engaged in large-scale criminal activity. Also (usu. as the Mob): the Mafia. > > 1927 Amer. Speech 2 385/1 Any kind of a gang was known as a push, a word credited to Australia, but I think it is a sister of the mob of the city underworld. 1929 D. HAMMETT Red Harvest ix. 91 He was in on the Keystone Trust knock-over in Philly two years ago, when Scissors Haggerty’s mob croaked two messengers. ---
**Author:** ![janeslogin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/df788c/32.png) [@janeslogin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/janeslogin)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2009, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-mob-come-to-mean-organized-crime/505273/5 "2009-08-04T16:57:06Z")
[etymonline.com](http://etymonline.com) says 1839 in Australia, 1927 in US.