<dt>: The Description Term element

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since July 2015.

The <dt> HTML element specifies a term in a description or definition list, and as such must be used inside a <dl> element. It is usually followed by a <dd> element; however, multiple <dt> elements in a row indicate several terms that are all defined by the immediate next <dd> element.

The subsequent <dd> (Description Details) element provides the definition or other related text associated with the term specified using <dt>.

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Attributes

This element only includes the global attributes.

Examples

Technical summary

Content categories None.
Permitted content Flow content, but with no <header>, <footer>, sectioning content or heading content descendants.
Tag omission The start tag is required. The end tag may be omitted if this element is immediately followed by another <dt> element or a <dd> element, or if there is no more content in the parent element.
Permitted parents A <dl> or (in WHATWG HTML, W3C HTML 5.2 and later) a <div> that is a child of a <dl>.
This element can be used before a <dd> or another <dt> element.
Implicit ARIA role No corresponding role
Permitted ARIA roles listitem
DOM interface HTMLElement Up to Gecko 1.9.2 (Firefox 4) inclusive, Firefox implements the HTMLSpanElement interface for this element.

Specifications

Specification
HTML Standard
# the-dt-element

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser

See also