The late football legend Pelé, who is widely considered to be the best footballer in history, has been honoured in Brazil by having his name officially recognised as a new adjective in the Michaelis dictionary.
The online edition of the Portuguese-language dictionary has added “Pelé” after a campaign by the Pelé Foundation to honour the football star gathered more than 125,000 signatures.
Pelé died in December aged 82. During his playing career spanning two decades, he scored a record 1,281 goals with Brazilian club Santos, Brazil’s national team, and the New York Cosmos.
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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. The word’s inclusion was announced by the publishers behind Michaelis dictionaries on Wednesday, stating that it would be included in the printed version once the next edition was published.
The entry defines “Pelé” as “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, the nickname of Edson Arantes do Nascimento (1940-2022), who is considered the greatest athlete of all time; exceptional, incomparable, unique.”
The Pelé Foundation said it was a fitting tribute to “the king” and tweeted that “the expression already used to refer to someone who is the best at what they do has been [made eternal] on the pages of the dictionary!
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