English
salient
Salient comes from Latin saliēns ‘springing, leaping’, and goes back to saliō ‘leap’.
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEsaliō‘leap’
- Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEsaliēns‘springing, leaping’
- Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEsalientemaccusative form of saliēns
- Englishearliest quotation 1650salient
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed
Earlier history uncertain.
Lineage
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEsaliō‘leap’
- Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEsaliēns‘springing, leaping’
- Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEsalientemaccusative form of saliēns
- Englishearliest quotation 1650salient
Earliest quotation: 1650, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica: […]: “frogs and salient animals”.
Formed from -ent
The story
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.
Linked words
through Proto-Indo-European *sel- ‘jump, spring’
sale, insult, exile, savage, silva, salon, salvage, sill, sylvan, salle, somersault, selva, slink, seel, selly, 18 more
through Latin saliō ‘leap’
result, salt, sauce, salad, salmon, sally, resilience, resilient, sauté, resiliency, salacious, exultant, 28 more
Today it means
adj Worthy of note; pertinent or relevant.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Latin saliō / salient