Brazil: The late football legend, Mr. Pelé, has become officially associated with the words “exceptional, incomparable, unique,” due to his legacy and impact on the sport.

In its online edition, the Michaelis dictionary, widely used in Brazil, has included “pelé” as a new adjective in Portuguese. The Pelé Foundation launched a campaign to honour the football star, which garnered over 125,000 signatures and included “pelé” as a new adjective in the Portuguese language version of the popular Michaelis dictionary.

At the age of 82, Mr. Pelé passed away in December 2022. Having won the World Cup three times, Mr. Pelé is widely regarded as the greatest football player in history. Throughout his two-decade-long playing career, Mr. Pelé managed to score a remarkable total of 1,281 goals across Brazilian club Santos, Brazil’s national team, and the New York Cosmos, setting a record that still stands to this day.

Following the passing of Mr. Pelé due to complications from colon cancer, his former club Santos, sports channel SporTV, and the Pelé Foundation had been advocating for the football legend to be acknowledged by having his name added as a separate entry in the dictionary.

The publishers of the Michaelis dictionaries have declared that the term “pelé” will be incorporated into the digital edition of their Portuguese-language dictionary right away, and in the printed version upon the release of the next edition, as of the announcement made on 26th April 2023.

According to the entry in the Michaelis dictionary, the term “pelé” is defined as an adjective used to describe someone or something that is extraordinary and unmatched in terms of quality, value, or superiority, much like the football legend Edson Arantes do Nascimento, nicknamed Pelé (1940-2022), who is widely regarded as the greatest athlete of all time. The definition further includes “exceptional, incomparable, unique” as suitable synonyms for the term.

The Pelé Foundation, which was established to safeguard the player’s legacy, expressed that the recent recognition of “pelé” as an adjective in the Portuguese-language dictionary was a fitting homage to the “king” of football. The foundation tweeted that the term “pelé” has now been immortalized in the dictionary’s pages, representing the concept of someone who excels in their field and is the epitome of excellence.

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