salient
Syllables: sa·lientUK/ˈseɪ.li.ənt/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
Australia/ˈsæɪ.li.ənt/
salient adjective: worthy of note; pertinent or relevant.
Adjective
salient (comparative more salient, superlative most salient)
- Worthy of note; pertinent or relevant.
- The article is not exhaustive, but it covers the salient points pretty well.
- With nearer approach these fragmentary sounds became pieced together, and were found to be the salient points of the tune called "Nancy's Fancy."1878 January–December, Thomas Hardy, chapter V, in The Return of the Native […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], published 1878, →OCLC
- Synonyms:
- pertinent, relevant, applicable, apposite, apt, ad rem, well-placed, felicitous, germane, in point
- Prominent; conspicuous.
- Warning me that many of the street signs were down, the youth drew for my benefit a rough but ample and painstaking sketch map of the town's salient features.1936, H.P. Lovecraft, The Shadow Over Innsmouth
- He [Grenville] had neither salient traits, nor general comprehensiveness of mind.1834, George Bancroft, History of the United States of America, from the discovery of the American continent
- Synonyms:
- attention-grabbing, flashy, high-profile, conspicuous, eye-catching, glossy, grabby, prominent
- Depicted in a leaping posture.
- a lion salient
- Projecting outwards, pointing outwards.
- a salient angle
- Synonyms:
- outstanding, projecting, prominent, bulging, exserted, extuberant, jutting, obtrusive, projectory, promontorial
- Moving by leaps or springs; jumping.
- frogs and salient animals1650, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica: […], 2nd edition, London: […] A[braham] Miller, for Edw[ard] Dod and Nath[aniel] Ekins, […], →OCLC
- Shooting or springing out; projecting.
- He had in himſelf a ſalient, living ſpring of generous and manly action.1796, Edmund Burke, A Letter from the Right Honourable Edmund Burke to a Noble Lord, on the Attacks Made upon Him and His Pension, […], London: […] J. Owen, […], and F[rancis] and C[harles]...
- Denoting any angle less than two right angles.
Noun
salient (plural salients)
- An outwardly projecting part of a fortification, trench system, or line of defense.
- On April 26 the First Division had gone into the line in the Montdidier salient on the Picardy battlefront.1919, “General Pershing's Story”, in Americans Defending Democracy: Our Soldiers' Own Stories, World's War Stories, Inc., page 9
- The battlefronts were often no more than a few hundred yards wide, and the salients never more than a few miles deep.1978, Jan Morris, chapter 9, in Farewell the Trumpets, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, page 193
- A protrusion of the administrative borders of a geopolitical entity, such as a subnational entity or a sovereign state into another geopolitical entity, generally of the same administrative level.
- An overall-convex, protruding section of a sinuous fold and thrust belt, thrust sheet, or a single thrust fault, caused by one or more of: deformation (folding and faulting) of strata and geologic structures during orogenesis, differences in the angle of critical taper during orogenesis, or differing erosional level of the present geomorphological surface.
- Orogenic arcs are made up by more advanced segments (salients) separated by less advanced zones (recesses) (Miser, 1932). Within salients, the critical taper is lower, the distance among thrust ramps is larger, and there may be more ramps departing from the basal décollement layer with respect to...2018 April 17, Michele Livani, Davide Scrocca, Paola Arecco, Carlo Doglioni, “Structural and Stratigraphic Control on Salient and Recess Development Along a Thrust Belt Front: The Northern Apennines...
- Antonyms:
- recess
salient meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam
salient in Tamil
- சிறப்பான, சிறப்புக்கூறு, பார்வையான, புறப்புடைப்பான, தலையாய, முக்கியமான
salient in Urdu
- ممتاز, نمایاں, ظاہر
salient in Bengali
- মূখ্য, প্রধান
salient in Malayalam
- ഏറ്റവും ശ്രദ്ധിക്കപ്പെടുന്ന, മുഖ്യമായ, തള്ളിനിൽക്കുന്ന, വിശിഷ്ടമായ
More languagesFewer languages
- salient in Kannada
- ಎದ್ದುಕಾಣುವ, ಪ್ರಧಾನ, ಮುಖ್ಯ, ಮಹತ್ವದ
- salient in Persian
- برجسته barjaste, بارز bârez, جهنده jahande
Examples of salient in a sentence
- The last salient point in which the systems of these creatures differed from ours was in what one might have thought a very trivial particular.1895–1897, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, chapter II, in The War of the Worlds, London: William Heinemann, published 1898, →OCLC, (please...
- Professionally published dictionaries do not seem to have extended coverage beyond the most frequent and salient items.2018, James Lambert, “A multitude of ‘lishes’: The nomenclature of hybridity”, in English World-Wide, page 2:
- Orogenic arcs are made up by more advanced segments (salients) separated by less advanced zones (recesses) (Miser, 1932).2018 April 17, Michele Livani, Davide Scrocca, Paola Arecco, Carlo Doglioni, “Structural and Stratigraphic Control on Salient and Recess...
Synonyms of salient
25 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Antonyms
Forms of salient
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more salient |
| superlative | most salient |
| Noun | |
| plural | salients |
Origin of salient
The heraldic sense “leaping” and the sense “projecting outward” are borrowed from Latin salientem, the accusative form of saliēns (“springing, leaping”) (whence -ent), present participle of saliō (“leap, spring”, verb). The senses “prominent” and “pertinent” are relatively recent, and derive from the phrase salient point, which is a calque of the Latin punctum saliēns, a translation of Aristotle's term for the embryonal heart visible in (opened) eggs, which he thought seemed to move already. Compare also the German calque der springende Punkt.
Words formed from salient
Phrases with salient
Questions about salient
- What does salient mean?
- Salient means worthy of note; pertinent or relevant.
- What is salient in Tamil?
- Salient in Tamil is சிறப்பான, சிறப்புக்கூறு, பார்வையான. See Salient meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use salient in a sentence?
- The last salient point in which the systems of these creatures differed from ours was in what one might have thought a very trivial particular.
- What part of speech is salient?
- Salient can be an adjective or a noun.
- How do you pronounce salient?
- Salient is pronounced /ˈseɪ.li.ənt/ (UK).
Words near salient in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: salient (page history and authors); salient (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); salient (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); salient (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); salient (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); salient (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-salient.ogg, en-au-salient.ogg.
Cite this entry: “salient.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/salient. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.