omerta

omerta (countable and uncountable, plural omertas)

1. Alternative form of omertà.
   • 2005 March 4, Shelley Murphy, “US seeking to seize Patriarca assets: Ex-mobster owes incarceration costs”, in The Boston Globe, volume 267, number 63, Boston, Mass.: The Globe Newspaper Co., →ISSN, →OCLC, City & Region section, page B3, column 1:

     Patriarca [Raymond Patriarca Jr.] pleaded guilty in December 1991 to racketeering and conspiracy charges, but he refused to admit he was a member of the Mafia, clinging to his vow of "omerta" to the secret organization.

   • 2006 October 27, Ross K. Baker, “Guns—the dead issue”, in Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, Calif.: Los Angeles Times Communications, →ISSN, →OCLC, page A29, columns 1–2:

     There was a time that high-profile killings such as the 1968 assassinations of Robert F[rancis] Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. brought passionate cries for limitations on handguns. A bipartisan omerta now smothers the issue.

   • 2009 February 7, Mark Lawson, “We're all in public now”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian‎^[1], London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 25 April 2025:

     But although her [Carol Thatcher's] agent has invoked that tradition of post-show omerta in her defence, the truth is that few would trust these days to what it is now possibly risky to call Chinese walls.

   • 2010, Aron Cramer, Zachary Karabell, “Leadership”, in Sustainable Excellence: The Future of Business in a Fast-changing World, New York, N.Y.: Rodale, →ISBN, page 58:

     Over the past ten years, a series of high-profile CEOs have broken unwritten omertas not to address the contentious challenges posed by climate change, human rights, and increased transparency.

• Moreta, Teramo, amoret, morate

Borrowed from Italian omertà.

• IPA^(key): [ˈomɛrta]
• Hyphenation: omer‧ta

omerta f

1. omertà

• “omerta”, in Příruční slovník jazyka českého (in Czech), 1935–1957
• “omerta”, in Slovník spisovného jazyka českého (in Czech), 1960–1971, 1989

From Italian omertà, from a Southern dialectal rhotacist variant of umiltà (“humility”), from Latin humilitās, from humilis (“humble”), from humus (“ground, soil”).

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• Rhymes: -aː

omerta f (plural omertas, diminutive omertaatje n)

1. (crime) omertà, (extensively) wall of silence, code of silence

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omerta f (plural omertas)

1. (crime) omertà
2. any code of silence

Unadapted borrowing from Italian omertà, from a Southern dialectal rhotacist variant of umiltà (“humility”), from Latin humilitās, from humilis (“humble”), from humus (“ground, soil”).

omerta

1. omertà

• “omerta” in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, Jakarta: Agency for Language Development and Cultivation – Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia, 2016.