Special importance or significance (8)
I believe the answer is:
emphasis
I believe this is a double definition.
'special importance' is the first definition.
(I've seen this before)
'significance' is the second definition.
(thesaurus)
(Other definitions for emphasis that I've seen before include "Stress, accentuation" , "Stress, special importance" , "Importance; priority" , "Stress laid on, eg, words" , "Stress given to a word" .)