Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US, orig. US Ital., also gumbah) a close male friend.

1952		R.P. Smith Time & Place 68: You know what goombah means? [...] It means like blood-brothers.
1960		Mad mag. July 42: And I want to thank all my wonderful TV gumbari for using my name.
1970		Harper’s Mag. June 78: The cops had collared a big gumbah of Frank Costello’s.
1982		G.V. Higgins Patriot Game (1985) 28: We want all our gumbahs come over and get rich? Nah. ‘Colored lights, Giovanni, you should see the colored lights.’.
1999		Guardian Guide 10–16 July 52: ‘It’s none of my business,’ whispers one of his goombahs.
2005		K. Huff Steady Rain I i: You’re my goombah, my partner in crime.

2. (US) a stupid person.

1952		(con. 1948) G. Mandel Flee the Angry Strangers 158: Cleanimup good [...] muhfookagoombah!
1987		W.T. Vollmann You Bright and Risen Angels (1988) 315: I want you to get those goombahs out of here.

3. (also goomba) an Italian-American.

1954		Coshocton (OH) Trib. 2 Dec. 8/6: ‘I will beat this Giambra,’ he insists, ‘and prove Italy still produces fine fighters.’ Its hard to see how he can be proved wrong. Joey is a goombah, too!
1962		Mad mag. Mar. 47: That was Fatso Goomba’s latest hit, ‘Sloppin’ Around’.
1979		E. Torres After Hours 8: Brigante. Where you get that name. Goombah?
1981		Graziano & Corsel Somebody Down Here Likes Me, Too 96: Some people still call me Goombah when they see me anyplace.

4. (US, also goomba, gumba) a thug, a gangster; spec. a member of an organized crime syndicate, usu. the US Mafia; also attrib.

1969		M. Puzo Godfather 55: I don’t care how many guinea Mafia goombahs come out of the woodwork.
1972		E. Grogan Ringolevio 96: He was a mean, cruel, brutal heavyweight of a goomba.
1977		E. Torres Q&A 95: Them is gumbas.
1979		E. Torres After Hours 179: Renzo looked at the goombahs.
1989		W. Kotzwinkle Midnight Examiner (1990) 100: ‘Joey go bang bang.’ Regressing still further, the little goombah at play.
1990		S. Morgan Homeboy 369: Them gumbas bankroll the A.B. street action.
1992		R. Price Clockers 360: He got into a beef with some old goombah [...] over his video games.
2000		C. Cook Robbers (2001) 111: Who knows? This goombah’s hard to read.
2004		K. Bruen ‘Fade To . . . Brooklyn’ in Brooklyn Noir 309: He is one crazy gumba.
2005		L. Theroux Call of the Weird (2006) 52: Rob affects a goombah mafioso persona.
2010		(con. 1973) C. Stella Johnny Porno 18: My wife gets a call from some goomba claims he’s a friend of Carmine Correlli.
2010		(con. 1973) C. Stella Johnny Porno 208: The fact that Albano had tried to back down wasn’t enough, not with all those goombahs in the same room.
2017		T. Pluck Bad Boy Boogie [ebook] ‘I know how you goombahs like it. I do your shit work, then you whack me to settle the books’.
2019		D. Winslow Border [ebook] Looks to be in his young thirties, beefed up from the gym, classic Staten Island goombah short-on-the-sides haircut.
2021		T. Pluck Boy from County Hell 24: [O]nly muscle for the goombahs or the Dixie Mafia would have the stones to treat a man that way.

5. in attrib. use of sense 4.

2011		J.J. DeCeglie Drawing Dead [ebook] He really was a fat goombah piece of shit.
2013		T. Piccirilli Last Whisper in the Dark 187: If Danny Thompson already had a syndicate hitter on the move he’d likely be of the old-school goombah variety.

6. (US Und.) in the US Mafia, a patron, lit. a ‘godfather’.

1979

E. Torres After Hours 119: Pete Amadeo, Tony Tee’s goombah.

7. (US campus) an outsider, a social outcast.

1990		Eble Campus Sl. Nov.
1996		Eble Sl. and Sociability 120: During 1990–92, all of the following nouns categorized someone as not attuned to the prevailing style or priorities of UNC-CH student life: [...] goombah.