the.com/yakuza

means A member of Japan's organized crime syndicates, which operate with quasi-corporate structures, ritualized codes, and a long history of entanglement with business and politics.

from The word comes from a losing hand in an old Japanese card game, oicho-kabu: ya (eight), ku (nine), and za (sa, three) — 8-9-3, a worthless score. Gamblers and outcasts adopted the losing hand as a badge of identity, and the name stuck to the gambling-linked gangs that grew from that world — a slang term for 'worthless' turned into a name feared and, in its own way, respected.