<defs>

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since January 2020.

The <defs> SVG element is used to store graphical objects that will be used at a later time. Objects created inside a <defs> element are not rendered directly. To display them you have to reference them (with a <use> element for example).

Graphical objects can be referenced from anywhere, however, defining these objects inside of a <defs> element promotes understandability of the SVG content and is beneficial to the overall accessibility of the document.

Example

html
<svg viewBox="0 0 10 10" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg">
  <!-- Some graphical objects to use -->
  <defs>
    <circle id="myCircle" cx="0" cy="0" r="5" />

    <linearGradient id="myGradient" gradientTransform="rotate(90)">
      <stop offset="20%" stop-color="gold" />
      <stop offset="90%" stop-color="red" />
    </linearGradient>
  </defs>

  <!-- using my graphical objects -->
  <use x="5" y="5" href="#myCircle" fill="url('#myGradient')" />
</svg>

Usage context

CategoriesContainer element, Structural element
Permitted contentAny number of the following elements, in any order:
Animation elements
Descriptive elements
Shape elements
Structural elements
Gradient elements
<a>, <clipPath>, <cursor>, <filter>, <font>, <font-face>, <foreignObject>, <image>, <marker>, <mask>, <pattern>, <script>, <style>, <switch>, <text>, <view>

Specifications

Specification
Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 2
# Head

Browser compatibility

Report problems with this compatibility data on GitHub
desktopmobile
Chrome
Edge
Firefox
Opera
Safari
Chrome Android
Firefox for Android
Opera Android
Safari on iOS
Samsung Internet
WebView Android
WebView on iOS
defs
systemLanguage

Legend

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Full support
Full support