CSS

3 synonyms for CSS, grouped by meaning and by how common each one is.

Noun — A language used to describe how a web page should look — its colours, fonts, spacing, sizes and layout — kept separate from the page's content.

Synonyms

Rare, literary or technical

Precise, but they will stand out — check the sense before using one.

cascading style sheets stylesheet language style sheet

How to use CSS

The word patterns that sound natural to a native speaker.

write CSS CSS file inline CSS CSS rule CSS framework pure CSS

Almost always written as the initialism; the full form "cascading style sheets" appears mainly in specifications and teaching material. Used as an uncountable noun: "some CSS", not "a CSS".

Etymology

An initialism of cascading style sheets, so called because style rules from several sources cascade together, with defined rules of precedence deciding which one applies.

Full origin of CSS →

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between CSS and HTML?

HTML sets out what is on the page — headings, paragraphs, images, links — and CSS sets out how those things look. You can view a page with HTML and no CSS and still read everything, it will simply be unstyled. The two are used together on virtually every web page.

Is CSS a programming language?

No. CSS is a stylesheet language: it declares how elements should be presented, rather than describing steps for a computer to carry out. It does have custom properties, which work as variables, and functions such as calc(), but it has no loops and no general branching logic, so it cannot express an algorithm the way a programming language can.

What does the "cascading" in CSS mean?

Style rules can come from several places at once — the browser's own defaults, the site's stylesheets, and rules attached directly to an element. When two rules conflict, the cascade is the set of rules that decides which one wins.

Nearby words

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