Pelé becomes official Portuguese adjective; synonym for “exceptional”

The Michaelis Dictionary has officially added “pelé” as an adjective in the Portuguese language, to describe something that is “exceptional, incomparable, unique,” and “out of the ordinary.”

Widely regarded as the greatest football player of all time, Pelé — whose full name was Edson Arantes do Nascimento — died last December. The three-time World Cup winner and “King of Football” had been battling advanced colon cancer for over a year and died at 82.

The campaign to add Pelé to the dictionary was spearheaded by the Pelé Foundation and Brazilian TV broadcaster SporTV. The petition to make the football icon an adjective garnered more than 100,000 signatures in a matter of weeks. The entry has already been added to Michaelis’s digital dictionary and will be included in the next print edition.

Throughout his 21-year career, Brazil’s eternal number 10 won 37 titles and scored an incredible 1,279 goals in 1,363 games. He is also the only player ever to have won the World Cup three times, in 1958, 1962, and 1970. His trajectory coincides with the history of Brazil and football itself, having a symbolic epilogue in the 1970 World Cup, which many experts consider the kickoff of modern football.

The definition indicates that the lower-case “pelé” can be used to describe someone or something that is the best in a particular field. Examples include: “He is the pelé of basketball,” or “She is the pelé of tennis.”

The full entry is as follows:

“pe·lé adj m+f sm+f That or someone which is out of the ordinary, which because of its quality, value, or superiority cannot be compared to anything or anyone, just like Pelé, the nickname of Edson Arantes do Nascimento (1940-2022), considered the greatest athlete of all time; exceptional, incomparable, unique.”

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