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HTML abbr Tag

Reading time 1 min
Published Jun 29, 2017
Updated Oct 2, 2019

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.

Example
<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:

Example
<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

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Chrome
2+
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Edge
All
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Firefox
1+
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IE
7+
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Opera
All
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Safari
All

Mobile browser support

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Chrome
All
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Firefox
4+
Browser image
Opera
All
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Safari
All