By Wilson Adekumola
Footballer icon, Edson Arantes do Nascimentos, professionally known as Pele has been included in Portuguese dictionary as an adjective synonymous to ‘exceptional, outstanding, unique’
It was gathered that popular Portuguese-language Michaelis dictionary in Brazil added “pelé” as a new adjective to its online edition.
This development comes after a campaign by the Pelé Foundation, the sports channel SporTV and the Sao Paulo football club Santos to honour the football star pooled more than 125,000 signatures
For the world’s 265 million-odd Portuguese speakers, “pele” can now be used to denote something or someone extraordinary — the sense in which was said already employed informally in Brazil.
“The expression already used to refer to someone who is the best at what they do has been eternalized on the pages of the dictionary!” the Pele Foundation said on Instagram.
It was learnt that under the new entry, the word is defined as “exceptional, incomparable, unique” — qualities associated with “The King” of football who died in December at the age of 82.
The online version of the Michaelis also provides useful examples: “He is the pele of basketball… She is the pele of Brazilian drama.”
For now, the word has been included only in the Michaelis online version, though it will be added to printed dictionaries in future.
Pele scored a world record 1,281 goals during his more than two decades playing with Santos (1956-74), the Brazilian national team, and the New York Cosmos (1975-77).
Pele was born in 23 October 1940 and died 29 December 2022.
He was a Brazilian professional footballer who played as a forward. Widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all time.
The Brazil legend was among the most successful and popular sports figures of the 20th century. In 1999, he was named Athlete of the Century by the International Olympic Committee and was included in the Time list of the 100 most important people of the 20th century.
In 2000, Pelé was voted World Player of the Century by the International Federation of Football History & Statistics and was one of the two joint winners of the FIFA Player of the Century.
His 1,279 goals in 1,363 games, including friendlies, is recognised as a Guinness World Record.
