Meaning

noun a loose affiliation of gangsters in charge of organized criminal activities

noun an association of companies for some definite purpose

noun a news agency that sells features or articles or photographs etc. to newspapers for simultaneous publication

originAnglicized from French syndicat (“office of a syndic; board of syndics; trade union”) on the basis of -ate (forms nouns denoting rank or office, a group formed of people of this same office), equivalent to syndic (“syndic; representative; (especially) chief magistrate of Geneva”) + -at (“-ate”, forms nouns denoting rank or office), from Medieval Latin *syndicātus, from syndicus (“representative…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0