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.
Economists have found that round-number prices for retail items have salience with consumers.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 31, 2026
Lizzie O’Leary: Let’s talk about the salience engine and storytelling platform on which you primarily exist, which is YouTube.
From Slate • Mar. 22, 2026
This is along with what she called the "growing salience of nuclear weapons".
From BBC • Feb. 4, 2026
The salience of both news organizations is waning.
From Barron's • Dec. 22, 2025
That may be due in part to the dull twilight in which the group is plunged, depriving all its lines of salience and relief.
From The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti by Symonds, John Addington
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.
