Foundation HTML5 with CSS3

Chapter 4

their job titles, or a sequence of events and the dates on which they occurred were all common uses of

definition lists. HTML5 has formalized this real-world usage and redefined the definition list as a

description list, suitable for any case where content calls for a listing of name-value groups. You can still

use a dl for a list of terms and definitions, of course.

The dl element is flow content, requires an end tag, and can only contain dt and dd elements as its

children. A single term may have several associated descriptions, or a single description may apply to

several terms grouped before it. The list is segmented wherever a dt immediately follows a dd, marking

the beginning of a new sequence of terms and descriptions.

Required Attributes

The dl element doesn’t have any required attributes.

Optional Attributes

There are no optional attributes for the dl element.

dt

The dt element, which can only contain text and/or phrase elements, designates a term or item being

described. A description term (or sequence of terms) is associated with every description that follows it

until a new dt element appears to begin a new sequence, or until the list ends with a </dl> end tag. You

can omit the </dt> end tag if the element is immediately followed by another dt element or a dd element.

Required Attributes

There are no required attributes for the dt element.

Optional Attributes

The dt element doesn’t offer any optional attributes.

dd

The dd element contains a description of the dt element (or elements) that immediately precedes it. In the

case of multiple descriptions for a single term, each one should be wrapped in its own dd element. The dd

element is flow content and can contain text or other flow elements. If your description spans several

paragraphs, mark them up as paragraphs (p) in a single dd rather than as separate dds—the entire

contents of one dd element should comprise one description. The dd’s end tag is optional if the next

element is another dd, a dt, or if the next tag is a </dl> end tag.

Listing 4-24 shows the markup for a brief description list. In the example, the first term’s description

consists of two paragraphs, whereas the second term has two distinct descriptions.