prominence, n.
(ˈprɒmɪnəns)
[a. obs. F. prominence (16th c. in Hatz.-Darm.), ad. L. prōminentia a jutting out, projection: see prominent and -ence.]
1. The fact or condition of being prominent.
| 1611 Cotgr., Prominence, a prominence; a standing, iutting, or strouting, out. 1656 in Blount Glossogr. 1781 Cowper Conversation 125 His evidence,..For want of prominence and just relief, Would hang an honest man, and save a thief. 1860 Tyndall Glac. i. ix. 61 Hiding by its prominence everything that might exist behind it. |
2. a. That which is prominent; a projection, protuberance.
| 1598 Florio, Prominentia, the extending or iutting of a thing out or ouer. Also a penthouse, a prominence, by which word the Anatomists vnderstand what portion soeuer doth notably surmount the parts circumiacent in thicknes. 1681 tr. Willis' Rem. Med. Wks. Vocab., Prominences, bunchings forth, those parts that notably shew themselves above the rest, as a hill in a plain. 1865 Geikie Scen. & Geol. Scot. vii. 154 Descending into the hollows and mounting over the prominences of the rock. |
b. solar prominence, a projecting cloud of incandescent hydrogen, etc., above the chromosphere of the sun, best seen during an eclipse. Also attrib. and Comb., as prominence-jet, prominence-spectrum.
| 1871 tr. Schellen's Spectr. Anal. liii. 250 No bright lines were seen by Young at this prominence-spectrum. 1893 Photogr. Ann. 167 Reversals do not extend above the chromosphere, except in prominences; and he has not as yet obtained any prominence with the calcium lines unaccompanied by hydrogen, and corresponding to the white prominences observed at eclipses... Mr. Evershed obtained satisfactory prominence pictures, using the red hydrogen line. 1903 A. M. Clerke Astrophysics 118 Professor Hale's daylight photographs of prominence-spectra. Ibid. 125 Nebular tufts, no less than prominence-jets, are resolvable into fibres. |
3. a. The quality or state of being conspicuous; distinction, notoriety, conspicuousness.
| 1828–32 Webster, Prominence, prominency..conspicuousness, distinction. 1864 Pusey Lect. Daniel (1876) 492 The prophet thereby gives prominence to the seeming contradiction. 1872 Morley Voltaire i. (1886) 3 Luther and Calvin..brought into splendid prominence their new ideas of moral order. 1874 Stubbs Const. Hist. I. xiii. 594 Its importance comes into historical prominence. |
b. Phonetics. The degree to which a sound or syllable stands out from its phonetic environment.
| 1929 I. C. Ward Phonetics of English xiv. 135 The effect of prominence is produced by the very intimate combination of length, stress, pitch, and inherent sonority of sounds. 1949 C. E. Bazell in Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Copenhague V. 83 When two features..are simultaneous in overt order, no distinctions of prominence (e.g. syllabic/asyllabic) can be made. 1950 D. Jones Phoneme 137 Prominence is an effect perceived objectively by the hearer. It is thus quite a different thing from stress which is a subjective activity on the part of the speaker. Ibid. 144 It is a natural tendency of English people and speakers of other stress languages to attribute all prominences to stress alone. 1962 A. C. Gimson Introd. Pronunc. Eng. 219 Among the vowels prominence increases as the vowel becomes more open. Ibid. 221 Sound qualities also contribute to an impression of prominence but mainly through the characteristic relationship of certain qualities with unaccented syllables and others with accented syllables. 1973 Word 1970 XXVI. 62 Not every syllable given accentual prominence in the sentence is a rhythmic accent with temporal prominence. |
4. a. Any conspicuous or salient point or matter. b. A prominent personage (newspaper slang).
| 1827 Hone Every-day Bk. II. 467 These are prominences seized by his whole audiences. 1855 Brewster Newton II. xxvii. 399 He bore down with instinctive sagacity on the prominences of his subject. 1887 Pall Mall G. 7 Sept. 5/2 All the prominences—aristocrats, musicians, men of letters,..&c.—sat down to a sumptuous collation. |
Hence ˈprominence v., to bring into prominence.
| 1897 T. R. Williams Serm. on ‘Just as I am’ 4 Jesus emphasized and prominenced in one life and death what God is ever doing. |