Etymology
Origin of salience
Explanation
Salience means importance. Your birthday will always be a date that jumps out at you with a lot of salience or importance. Salience comes from the Latin salire, meaning "to leap." Something with salience leaps out at you because it is unique or special in some way. This could be an issue — like health care reform, or a day — like 9/11, or even something someone said — like the State of the Union address. If it jumps out at you as remarkable or special, it's characterized by a quality of salience.
Vocabulary lists containing salience
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
"It might be the case that if everyone starts talking about it, then it raises the salience," Jac Larner said.
From BBC • Apr. 20, 2026
Economists have found that round-number prices for retail items have salience with consumers.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 31, 2026
The salience of both news organizations is waning.
From Barron's • Dec. 22, 2025
This reward pathway regulates motivation, reinforces learning, and activates incentive salience, which is a cognitive process that makes us experience “desire” or “want.”
From Salon • Mar. 16, 2025
The head had been caught in an attitude of leaning against a wall, so that the salience of the jaw, the flare of the nostrils, and the white of the eye were accentuated sharply.
From Aliens by McFee, William
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
