salient

Meanings

Adjective

• Worthy of note; pertinent or relevant.
• Prominent; conspicuous.
• Depicted in a leaping posture.
• Projecting outwards, pointing outwards.
• Moving by leaps or springs; jumping.
• Shooting or springing out; projecting.
• Denoting any angle less than two right angles.

Noun

• An outwardly projecting part of a fortification, trench system, or line of defense.
• An elongated protrusion of a geopolitical entity, such as a subnational entity or a sovereign state.

Origin

• The heraldic sense “leaping” and the sense “projecting outward” are from Latin saliens, from saliō. The senses “prominent” and “pertinent” are relatively recently from the phrase salient point, which is from the , a translation of Aristotle's term for the embryonal heart visible in (opened) eggs, which he thought seemed to move already. Compare the German calque der springende Punkt.