Pelé celebrates during a match for the New York Cosmos in August 1977.
George Tiedemann/Sports Illustrated/Getty Images
CNN
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Should you ever need a reminder of how good Pelé was at football, just look up his name in a Portuguese dictionary.
The Brazilian football legend, who passed away in December, has been added to the Portuguese edition of the Michaelis dictionary as an adjective to describe someone or something “out of the ordinary.”
(Original Caption) Miami, Florida: Head and shoulders portrait of the New York Cosmos soccer sensation Pele standing on the field in New York Cosmos uniform. The crowd can be seen in the background.
Bettmann Archive/Getty Images
The move comes after a “Pelé in the dictionary” campaign, organized by the Pelé Foundation and SporTV, gained more than 125,000 signatures.
A definition of “Pelé” in the Michaelis dictionary now reads: “What or who is out of the ordinary, what or who by virtue of their quality, value or superiority cannot be equaled to anything or anyone, just like Pelé, nickname of Edson Arantes do Nascimento (1940-2022), considered to be the greatest athlete of all time; exceptional, incomparable, unique.
“Examples: He is the Pelé of basketball, she is the Pelé of tennis, she is the Pelé of Brazilian dramaturgy.”
Pelé attends Soccer Aid at Old Trafford in Manchester on June 5, 2016.
Shirlaine Forrest/WireImage/Getty Images
A three-time World Cup winner, Pelé is considered by many to be football’s first global superstar and the one of the greatest players of all time.
The announcement that his name had been added to the dictionary was marked at a sports industry summit in São Paulo, Brazil, where his family received a plaque displaying the definition.
“His name in the dictionary is a very important piece of his legacy that will keep Pelé alive forever,” said Joe Fraga, executive director of the Pelé Foundation, according to Reuters.
CNN’s Duarte Mendonca contributed to reporting
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