The word “Pelé” has become a common word in the Portuguese language and enters the dictionary as a synonym for the word “exceptional”.

For several decades now, any exceptional soccer player in the world, who is a top scorer, has been compared to the famous Brazilian soccer player Pele.
Now the nickname Edson Arantes do Nascimento, considered by many to be the greatest footballer of all time, who died on December 29 at the age of 82, is used colloquially in Brazil as a synonym for excellence.
In France, the popular expression for excellence is often “Mozart”. In Michaelis Dictionary of the Portuguese Language, “peeled” (without the capital letter) is synonymous with “exceptional, incomparable, unique”. Its definition is: “Something or someone extraordinary, something or person that cannot, by virtue of its quality, value or superiority, be equal to anything or anyone else, such as Pelé®, titled Edson Arantes do Nascimento (1940-2022), is considered the greatest Athlete of all time, “we can read in the online version of the dictionary. Michaelis also gives some examples of its use: “It’s a basketball pellet”, “It’s a Brazilian drama pellet”, “It’s a medicine pellet”. The Brazilian Academy of Literature, which governs the Portuguese language in Brazil, where 215 million Portuguese speakers live, did not introduce the word “Pele” in its digital version.

This addition to the dictionary is the result of a joint campaign launched by the Pele Foundation on April 14, in partnership with Santos, the club in which the triple world champions (1958, 1962, 1970) starred from 1956 to 1974, and the Sportv channel, from the Globo group, the largest media conglomerate in the country . Four months after his death, the eternal number 10 for Santos and the Seleção is still the subject of many tributes, such as a minute’s silence before all matches in the Brazilian championship and international South American competitions such as the Copa Libertadores or the Copa Sudamericana. .