---
title: Semantics
slug: Glossary/Semantics
page-type: glossary-definition
sidebar: glossarysidebar
---

In programming, **Semantics** refers to the _meaning_ of a piece of code — for example "what effect does running that line of JavaScript have?", or "what purpose or role does that HTML element have" (rather than "what does it look like?".)

## Semantics in JavaScript

In JavaScript, consider a function that takes a string parameter, and returns an {{htmlelement("li")}} element with that string as its `textContent`. Would you need to look at the code to understand what the function did if it was called `build('Peach')`, or `createLiWithContent('Peach')`?

## Semantics in CSS

In CSS, consider styling a list with `li` elements representing different types of fruits. Would you know what part of the DOM is being selected with `div > ul > li`, or `.fruits__item`?

## Semantics in HTML

In HTML, for example, the {{htmlelement("Heading_Elements", "h1")}} element is a semantic element, which gives the text it wraps around the role (or meaning) of "a top level heading on your page."

```html
<h1>This is a top level heading</h1>
```

By default, most browser's [user agent stylesheet](/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/CSS_cascade/Cascade#user-agent_stylesheets) will style an {{htmlelement("Heading_Elements", "h1")}} with a large font size to make it _look_ like a heading (although you could style it to look like anything you wanted).

On the other hand, you could make any element _look_ like a top level heading. Consider the following:

```html
<span style="font-size: 32px; margin: 21px 0;">Not a top-level heading!</span>
```

This will render it to look like a top level heading, but it has no semantic value, so it will not get any extra benefits as described above. It is therefore a good idea to use the right HTML element for the right job.

HTML should be coded to represent the _data_ that will be populated and not based on its default presentation styling. Presentation (how it should look), is the sole responsibility of [CSS](/en-US/docs/Web/CSS).

Some of the benefits from writing semantic markup are as follows:

- Search engines will consider its contents as important keywords to influence the page's search rankings (see {{glossary("SEO")}})
- Screen readers can use it as a signpost to help visually impaired users navigate a page
- Finding blocks of meaningful code is significantly easier than searching through endless `div`s with or without semantic or namespaced classes
- Suggests to the developer the type of data that will be populated
- Semantic naming mirrors proper custom element/component naming

When approaching which markup to use, ask yourself, "What element(s) best describe/represent the data that I'm going to populate?" For example, is it a list of data?; ordered, unordered?; is it an article with sections and an aside of related information?; does it list out definitions?; is it a figure or image that needs a caption?; should it have a header and a footer in addition to the global site-wide header and footer?; etc.

## Semantic elements

These are _some_ of the roughly 100 semantic [elements](/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements) available:

- {{htmlelement("article")}}
- {{htmlelement("aside")}}
- {{htmlelement("details")}}
- {{htmlelement("figcaption")}}
- {{htmlelement("figure")}}
- {{htmlelement("footer")}}
- {{htmlelement("form")}}
- {{htmlelement("header")}}
- {{htmlelement("main")}}
- {{htmlelement("mark")}}
- {{htmlelement("nav")}}
- {{htmlelement("section")}}
- {{htmlelement("summary")}}
- {{htmlelement("time")}}

## See also

- [HTML element reference](/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements#inline_text_semantics) on MDN
- [Using HTML sections and outlines](/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/Heading_Elements#usage_notes) on MDN
- [The meaning of semantics in computer science](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantics#Computer_science) on Wikipedia
- Related glossary terms:
  - {{Glossary("SEO")}}