Both Uses of
salient
in
A Separate Peace
- So I roamed on past the balanced red brick dormitories with webs of leafless ivy clinging to them, through a ramshackle salient of the town which invaded the school for a hundred yards, past the solid gymnasium, full of students at this hour but silent as a monument on the outside, past the Field House, called The Cage—
p. 12.8salient = projecting outward into the school
- The flaps of his gabardine jacket parted slightly over his healthy rump, and it is that, without any sense of derision at all, that I recall as Brinker's salient characteristic, those healthy, determined, not over-exaggerated but definite and substantial buttocks.
p. 87.5 *salient = most noteworthy
Definitions:
-
(1)
(salient) the most noteworthy or important points about a thing
-
(2)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) meaning too rare to warrant focus:
There are numerous less-commonly used senses of salient. All of them can be thought of a derivation of prominent:
military: the part of the line of battle that projects closest to the enemy
geometry: (of angles) pointing outward at an angle of less than 180 degrees
heraldry: a leaping horse on a coat-of-arms