Black Hand

American  

noun

1. Italian La Mano Nera.  any of various secret criminal groups organized in Italy and operating in the U.S. in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, practicing blackmail and violence.

2. an anarchistic society in Spain, suppressed in 1883.

3. a nationalistic society in Serbia, suppressed in 1914.

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Black Hand British  

noun

1. a group of Sicilian blackmailers and terrorists formed in the 1870s and operating in the US in the early 20th century

2. (in 19th-century Spain) an organization of anarchists

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Other Word Forms

• Blackhander noun

Example Sentences

Charlie Russell was a playwright, too, best known for his 1969 piece “Five on the Black Hand Side,” which became a popular Blaxploitation-era film.

From Washington Post • Sep. 6, 2020

Sam Jary, winemaker and owner of Penrith’s Black Hand Wine shop, argues that the efficacy of biodynamic growing is self-evident.

From The Guardian • Nov. 14, 2017

Joseph proves an active audience member, laughing at the pratfalls and mouthing the mad, seductive speeches of Black Hand leader Dragutin “Apis” Dimitrijevic along with actor Patrick Page.

From Los Angeles Times • May 5, 2017

Stops at Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral, 19th-century “disorderly houses” and the Haughwout Building help to explain this transition — as do sites associated with President Theodore Roosevelt, Keith Haring, Jane Jacobs and the Black Hand.

From New York Times • Oct. 13, 2016

They had been recruited, trained, and armed by the Black Hand, a secret group dedicated to the expansion of the Kingdom of Serbia and the liberation of all Serbs living under foreign rule.

From "The War to End All Wars: World War I" by Russell Freedman

Related Words

• mob