Salient means standing out as the most noticeable point. The salient points, salient features, most salient of all.
It nearly always goes with points or features and means the ones worth attending to. As a noun in war it is a bulge in a front line, dangerous because it can be attacked from three sides at once.
1adjectivesalientStanding out as the most noticeable point.
“The salient feature of the design is its huge glass roof.”
salient is a quality.
Latin saliens means leaping, from salire, to leap.
Proto-Indo-European
*sel-
Latin
salientem
English, today
salient
Built from
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”). 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.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA