The late football legend, Edson Arantes, popularly known as Pele, has officially become synonymous with “exceptional, incomparable, unique”.
The Portuguese-language Michaelis dictionary, one of the most popular in Brazil, added “pelé” as a new adjective to its online edition.
This inclusion resulted after the Pelè foundation campaign organised to honour the football star gathered more than 125,000 signatures.
Pelé who died in December at age 82, was the only player to have won the World Cup three times and is widely considered to be the best footballer in history.
The football star died from complications colon cancer complications and since then, his former club, Santos, sports channel SporTV and the Pelé Foundation had been pressing for the football star’s name to be recognised with its own entry in the dictionary.
On Wednesday, the publishers behind Michaelis dictionaries announced the word would be included in the digital edition of their Portuguese-language dictionary immediately and in the printed version once the next edition was published.
The entry reads: “pe.lé adj. That or someone who is out of the ordinary, who or who by virtue of their quality, value or superiority cannot be equalled to anything or anyone, just like Pelé, nickname of Edson Arantes do Nascimento (1940-2022), who is considered the greatest athlete of all time; exceptional, incomparable, unique.”
The Pelé Foundation is said to have created this to preserve the legacy of the player, noting that it is a fitting tribute to “the king”.
Chioma Kalu
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