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/HTML

<abbr>

The HTML <abbr> element represents an abbreviation and optionally provides a full description for it. If present, the title attribute must contain this full description and nothing else.

Content categories	Flow content, phrasing content, palpable content
Permitted content	Phrasing content
Tag omission	None, both the starting and ending tag are mandatory.
Permitted parents	Any element that accepts phrasing content
Permitted ARIA roles	Any
DOM Interface	`HTMLElement`

Attributes

This element only includes the global attributes.

Use the title attribute to define the full description of the abbreviation. Many user agents present this as a tooltip.

Note: In languages with grammatical number (especially languages with more than two numbers, like Arabic), use the same grammatical number in your title attribute as inside your <abbr> element.

Example

<abbr title="Internationalization">I18N</abbr>

See more in-depth examples in the How to mark abbreviations and make them understandable article.

Default styling

The purpose of this element is purely for the convenience of the author and all browsers display it inline (display: inline) by default, though its default styling varies from one browser to another:

Some browsers, like Internet Explorer, do not style it differently than a <span> element.
Opera, Firefox, and some others add a dotted underline to the content of the element.
A few browsers not only add a dotted underline, but also put it in small caps; to avoid this styling, adding something like font-variant: none in the CSS takes care of this case.

Specifications

Specification	Status	Comment
WHATWG HTML Living Standard The definition of '<abbr>' in that specification.	Living Standard
HTML5 The definition of '<abbr>' in that specification.	Recommendation
HTML 4.01 Specification The definition of '<abbr>' in that specification.	Recommendation

Browser compatibility

Feature	Chrome	Edge	Firefox (Gecko)	Internet Explorer	Opera	Safari
Basic support	2.0	(Yes)	1.0 (1.7 or earlier) [1]	7.0	1.3	(Yes)

Feature	Android	Edge	Firefox Mobile (Gecko)	IE Mobile	Opera Mobile	Safari Mobile
Basic support	(Yes)	(Yes)	(Yes)	(Yes)	(Yes)	(Yes)