saliente

salient, most important

adjective sah-LYEN-teh Rare

Origin: Latin saliens, present participle of salire (to leap)

Usage Note

Saliente means 'standing out' or 'most relevant' and is used in formal and journalistic writing: i punti salienti — the main/key points. It does not carry the military sense of 'salient' (a projecting line of defence) in everyday Italian; that sense is rare. The word is invariable for gender (il punto saliente / la caratteristica saliente).

Examples

"Qual è il punto saliente del discorso?"

Natural Translation

What is the most important point of the speech?

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