<dfn>: The HTML Definition Element

1 Description

The HTML <dfn> element is short for 'definition' and the element is used to encapsulate a word or term which you are going to define. The definition for the word or term must be located in one of the following three places.

  1. The definition may be in a parent <dd> element.
  2. The definition may be in a parent <section> element.
  3. The definition may be in a parent <p> element.

The <dfn> element accepts the title attribute. The value of the title attribute should be the word or term which is being defined.

2 Examples

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
    <head>
        <title>Example Page</title>
    </head>
    <body>
        <section>
            <dfn>Hypertext Markup Language</dfn> is a markup language intended to encode
            information in a structured way which can then be displayed by web browsers.
        </section>
        <p>
            <dfn><abbr title="Cascading Style Sheets">CSS</abbr></dfn> is a language used
            to control the appearance of html web pages.
        </p>
        <dl>
            <dt>Javascript</dt>
            <dd>
                A scripted loosely typed programming language which is frequently used
                to create interactive and dynamic web pages. <dfn>Javascript</dfn> is
                supported by all major web browsers.
            </dd>
        </dl>
    </body>
</html>

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