Yakuza Definition

Origin of Yakuza

• Japanese yakuza card hand consisting of eight, nine, and three (the worst possible hand in a traditional Japanese card game in which a player's final score is the last digit of the sum of the values of the player's hand), good-for-nothing, yakuza ya eight (from Old Japanese) ku nine (from Early Middle Chinese kuw’) ((also the source of Mandarin jiǔ nine)) (ultimately from Proto-Sino-Tibetan d-ku) (Tibetan dgu) za alteration of san three (from Middle Chinese sam) (also the source of Mandarin sān sampan)

  From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition

• From Japanese, やくざ

  From Wiktionary