salient

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin saliēns (“leaping”), the present participle of saliō (“to leap, spring”).^{[2][3][4][5][6]} The OED notes that the English form was often assimilated wholly or partly to French saillant, from the same Latin verb,^[2] and Weekley derived the sense "jutting out" from saillir (“to jut out”).^[7] Etymonline traces the Latin verb to a root of uncertain form, also the source of Ancient Greek ἅλλεσθαι (hállesthai, “to leap”), Middle Irish saltraim (“I trample”) and Middle Welsh sathar (“trampling”);^[3][8] Klein adds Tocharian A sāl- (“to jump”) and ἅλμα (hálma, “a leap”),^[8] and the American Heritage Dictionary refers it to Proto-Indo-European *sel-.^[4] The Latin verb is also the source of assail, assault, desultory, insult, sally and sauté, and through salāx of salacious.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

In heraldry, of a lion or other beast: shown as if leaping, with the hind legs in the lower left and the forepaws raised together in the upper right of the shield.^[2][5] The first record is from 1562, in Legh's Accedens of Armory.^{[2][5][3][10][11]}

Semantic evolution

Outside heraldry the word meant "leaping, jumping" from 1646, in Browne's Pseudodoxia Epidemica.^[2][6] Boyle applied it in 1669 to water jetting upwards.^[2] Johnson (1755) gave "leaping; bounding" and "beating; panting".^[12] The phrase salient point translated New Latin punctum saliens, a term going back to Aristotle for the heart of an embryo, which seems to leap as if alive; from the 1670s it also meant the starting point of anything.^{[3][6][13][2]} An angle salient, pointing outward, is recorded from 1687, chiefly in fortification, where it is opposed to re-entrant.^[2][6][3] The sense "jutting out", of material things, followed in 1789,^[2][6] and the figurative "prominent, striking" in 1840^[6][3] or 1841, in Carlyle;^[2] Ayto places this metaphorical sense in the 18th century,^[9] and the Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins in the mid 19th.^[14] Etymonline derives it from salient point.^[3] The noun, a salient angle or part of a fortification, dates from 1828,^[2][3][11] and a projection of land held by a line of attack or defence, as in trench warfare, from 1864;^[2][6] Weekley found the military noun very familiar.^[7] In psychology the adjective describes what stands out in perception.^[2]

Timeline

• 1562 – heraldry, depicted as leaping.^[2][11]
• 1646 – leaping, jumping.^[2][6]
• 1669 – of water, jetting upwards.^[2]
• 1672 – salient point, a starting point.^[6][3]
• 1687 – of an angle, pointing outward.^[2][6]
• 1789 – jutting out, projecting.^[2][6]
• 1828 – noun, a salient angle or part of a fortification.^[2][3][11]
• 1841 – prominent, conspicuous.^[2] Barnhart and Etymonline date this sense to 1840.^[6][3]
• 1864 – noun, a projecting stretch of land held by a military line.^[2][6]
• 1886 – salient pole, in electrical machinery.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Most noticeable or most important; prominent, conspicuous: The lawyer went over the salient facts of the case.^[15][11][2]
2. Projecting outward or upward; jutting out.^[11][2]
3. Of an angle: pointing outward, as in a fortification or a polygon; the opposite of re-entrant.^[15][2]
4. (heraldry) Of a beast: shown as leaping.^[2][5]
5. Leaping or jumping.^[2][5][12]

Noun

1. A part of a fortification or a battle line that projects outward toward the enemy; a bulge in a front line.^[11][2][3]
2. A salient angle or projecting part.^[11][2]

Word family

• saliently
• salientness
• unsalient

Related words

• salience
• saliency
• sally
• assail
• assault
• desultory
• insult
• sauté
• salacious
• somersault
• exult

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
8. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
10. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
12. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
14. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
15. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins