Glossary

Specificity

The CSS scoring of a selector that resolves cascade ties when origin, importance, and layer are equal. Counted as a four-part tuple: inline, ids, classes/attributes/pseudo-classes, type/pseudo-element.

Specificity is computed as a,b,c,d: a = 1 if the rule is in a style attribute, b counts ids, c counts classes and attribute selectors and pseudo-classes, d counts element names and pseudo-elements. The :not() pseudo-class adopts the highest specificity of its argument; :where() always contributes zero; :is() and :has() adopt the highest specificity of their argument list. Cascade Layers reduce the practical importance of specificity by giving an outer ordering key.