Definition of "salient"

With nearer approach these fragmentary sounds became pieced together, and were found to be the salient points of the tune called "Nancy's Fancy."

1878 January–December, Thomas Hardy, chapter V, in The Return of the Native […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], published 1878

The last salient point in which the systems of these creatures differed from ours was in what one might have thought a very trivial particular.

1895–1897, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, chapter II, in The War of the Worlds, London: William Heinemann, published 1898, (please specify the page number(s))

Warning me that many of the street signs were down, the youth drew for my benefit a rough but ample and painstaking sketch map of the town's salient features.

1936, H.P. Lovecraft, The Shadow Over Innsmouth

He [Grenville] had neither salient traits, nor general comprehensiveness of mind.

1834, George Bancroft, History of the United States of America, from the discovery of the American continent

Professionally published dictionaries do not seem to have extended coverage beyond the most frequent and salient items.

2018, James Lambert, “A multitude of ‘lishes’: The nomenclature of hybridity”, in English World-Wide‎, page 2

frogs and salient animals

1650, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica: […], 2nd edition, London: […] A[braham] Miller, for Edw[ard] Dod and Nath[aniel] Ekins, […]

He had in himſelf a ſalient, living ſpring of generous and manly action.

1796, Edmund Burke, A Letter from the Right Honourable Edmund Burke to a Noble Lord, on the Attacks Made upon Him and His Pension, page 50

On April 26 the First Division had gone into the line in the Montdidier salient on the Picardy battlefront.

1919, “General Pershing's Story”, in Americans Defending Democracy: Our Soldiers' Own Stories, World's War Stories, Inc., page 9

The battlefronts were often no more than a few hundred yards wide, and the salients never more than a few miles deep.

1978, Jan Morris, chapter 9, in Farewell the Trumpets‎, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, page 193