Descendant Combinator

Combinators
A B

Selects all B elements that are descendants (at any depth) of A elements.

Example

nav a {
  color: white;
  text-decoration: none;
}
.card p {
  color: gray;
}

Specificity

Sum of parts

Browser Support

All browsers

About the Descendant Combinator

The A B CSS selector belongs to the Combinators category.Selects all B elements that are descendants (at any depth) of A elements. Understanding CSS selector specificity and combinators is essential for writing maintainable stylesheets that behave predictably.

The specificity of this selector is Sum of parts. CSS specificity determines which styles are applied when multiple rules target the same element. Higher specificity values take precedence. The specificity hierarchy from lowest to highest is: universal (*) → type/element → class/attribute/pseudo-class → ID → inline styles → !important.

Browser support for Descendant Combinator is: All browsers. When using newer CSS selectors like :has(), :is(), or CSS nesting, consider providing fallback styles for older browsers. Use @supports to progressively enhance your stylesheets with modern features while maintaining backward compatibility.

Related Selectors

A > BA + BA ~ B