Comare

By Deane Barker

This is a slang word, pronounced “goo-mah.” It’s a weird word, because that’s an American pronunciation of an Italian word, and it has a different meaning in America. And the English spelling is sometimes “goomar.”

It’s the name for Mafioso’s mistress. A made man in the Italian mafia has a wife…and a mistress or “Comare.” The word actually means “godmother” in Italian – the joke being that a man names a woman he’s sleeping with on the side as the godmother to his children.

Why I Looked It Up

The word was used in The Sopranos a lot.

It’s also showed up in a couple SNL sketches. From a mafia episode with Lindsay Lohan:

Oww, I think I have a control of my goomar situation.

There was also an entire sketch entitled Good Morning Goomah. The sketch was about two goomah’s running a talk show.

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