goombah


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goom·bah

(go͝om′bä, go͞om′-)
n. Slang
A companion or associate, especially an older friend who acts as a patron, protector, or adviser.

[From Neapolitan cumpà, friend (with initial c regularly voiced to g after vowels within a sentence), from earlier, godfather, from Medieval Latin compater; see compadre.]
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

goombah

(ˈɡʊmbə)
n
a patron or mentora macho Italian-American
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014
References in periodicals archive ?
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It is not goodbye for Goombah [Bradley who was moved to another jail the day after the wedding] and I but just the start of our journey.
Not even a routine beating can be dished out without copious amounts of planning, hedging, negotiating, arguing and cussing beforehand, the goombah equivalent of bureaucratic red tape.