salience

/ˈseɪliəns/

Other forms: saliences

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.

Definitions of salience

1. noun

   the state of being significant
   synonyms: saliency, strikingness

   types:

   conspicuousness

   the state of being conspicuous

   profile, visibility

   degree of exposure to public notice

   low profile

   a state of low visibility in which public notice is avoided

   type of:

   prominence

   the state of being prominent: widely known or eminent