Brazil Football Legend’s Name Enters Dictionary To Define Excellence

Regarded as the greatest athlete of all time to have graced the game of football, Brazil footballer, Edson Arantes do Nascimento, nicknamed Pelé, has been officially entered into the dictionary as a synonym for “exceptional, incomparable, unique”.

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Pelé, who died in December aged 82 from colon cancer, is the only player to have won the World Cup three times, with his silky and skilful touch whenever playing.

Following a campaign by the Pelé Foundation to honour the football icon, which gathered more than 125,000 signatures, Portuguese-language Michaelis dictionary added ‘pelé’ as a new adjective to its online edition, the BBC has reported.

The dictionary is one of the most popular in the country, with its publishers saying the new adjective would be added to its online edition as soon as possible.

Since his demise, his former club, Santos, sports channel SporTV and the Pelé Foundation have campaigned for the football great to be honoured with an entry to deitify a footballer who is reckoned to have scored the highest number of goals for clubs and country.

Following the campaign and the collection of signatures, the publishers of the dictionary announced on Wednesday that the word ‘pelé’ would be included in the digital edition immediately.

The publishers further said the name would also be added to their Portuguese-language dictionary once the next edition was published.

Accordingly, the entry in the dictionary 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.”

It was a fitting tribute to “the king”, reacted the Pelé Foundation, a charitable organisation created to preserve the player’s legacy.

“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!,” the foundation said in a tweet.

Pelé, whose playing career spanned two decades with Brazilian club Santos, Brazil’s national team, and the New York Cosmos, scored a record 1,281 goals.