omerta

See also: omertà

English

Noun

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.

Anagrams

• Moreta, Teramo, amoret, morate

Czech

Etymology

Borrowed from Italian omertà.

Pronunciation

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

Noun

omerta f

1. omertà

Declension

Declension of omerta (hard feminine)

	singular	plural
nominative	omerta	omerty
genitive	omerty	omert
dative	omertě	omertám
accusative	omertu	omerty
vocative	omerto	omerty
locative	omertě	omertách
instrumental	omertou	omertami

Further reading

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

Dutch

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aː

Noun

omerta f (plural omertas, diminutive omertaatje n)

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

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɔ.mɛʁ.ta/

• Audio (France (Vosges)):

  (file)

Noun

omerta f (plural omertas)

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

Indonesian

Etymology

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

Noun

omerta

1. omertà

Further reading

• “omerta”, in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia [Great Dictionary of the Indonesian Language] (in Indonesian), Jakarta: Agency for Language Development and Cultivation – Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia, 2016