salient vs vital

salient

adj
  • Worthy of note; pertinent or relevant. 

  • Projecting outwards, pointing outwards. 

  • Depicted in a leaping posture. 

  • Prominent; conspicuous. 

  • Denoting any angle less than two right angles. 

noun
  • An outwardly projecting part of a fortification, trench system, or line of defense. 

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

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

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

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

  • An elongated protrusion of a geopolitical entity, such as a subnational entity or a sovereign state. 

vital

adj
  • Very important. 

  • Invigorating or life-giving. 

  • Containing life; living. 

  • Necessary to continued existence. 

  • Necessary to the continuation of life; being the seat of life; being that on which life depends. 

  • Capable of living; in a state to live; viable. 

  • Relating to the recording of life events. 

  • Relating to, or characteristic of life. 

How often have the words salient and vital occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )