HTML abbr Tag

HTML abbr: Main Tips

• HTML <abbr> element marks a combination of characters as an abbreviation or an acronym.
• With title attribute in the opening HTML <abbr> tag, you provide full-text explanation for the specified abbreviation (or acronym).
• This element is a modern version of the deprecated <acronym>.

Use of abbr

HTML <abbr> marks abbreviations or acronyms and sets a full-text explanation for them.

<p><abbr title="Hypertext Markup Language">HTML</abbr> is a presentation language.</p>

The explanation in the title attribute is not visible immediately. Users have to hover over the sequence of characters to trigger the comment.

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Defining HTML Abbreviations

When the abbreviation (or acronym) is little-known, simply deciphering it might not be enough: you might need to provide some extra explanation. To do that, nest your <abbr> tags inside a <dfn> element:

<p><dfn id="evm"><abbr title="Ethereum Virtual Machine">EVM</abbr>
</dfn> is a blockchain-based software platform. </p>

Let's analyze the example above bit by bit:

• The <abbr> tags note that EVM is an HTML abbreviation.
• The <dfn> tags show that EVM is a term being defined.
• The title attribute defines the full term EVM represents.

Browser support

Chrome

2+

Edge

All

Firefox

1+

IE

7+

Opera

All

Safari

All

Mobile browser support

Chrome

All

Firefox

4+

Opera

All

Safari

All