Pele becomes an adjective in Portuguese dictionary
The Pele Foundation on Wednesday announced that the name of the football legend has been enlisted into the Portuguese dictionary and is now used as an adjective in the Portuguese language.
The Foundation made this known on via its official Instagram page.
The “Pele” was added to the more than 167,000 words in the Michaelis Portuguese dictionary printed in Brazil.
The Foundation explains that “pele” about 265 million Portuguese speakers can now use the word which denotes something or someone extraordinary the sense in which it is already employed informally in Brazil.
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“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.
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 Foundation noted that the word for the meantime was included only in the Michaelis online version, though it will be added to printed dictionaries in future, according to AFP.
It is the result of a campaign by the Pele Foundation, the sports channel SporTV and the Sao Paulo football club Santos where Pele played for much of his career.
Pele during his football career scored 1,281 goals while playing with Santos (1956-74), the Brazilian national team, and the New York Cosmos (1975-77).
