:nth-of-type() Selector

Categories: Selectors > Child Filter

nth-of-type selector

Description: Selects all elements that are the nth child of their parent in relation to siblings with the same element name.

  • version added: 1.9jQuery( ":nth-of-type(index/even/odd/equation)" )

    index: The index of each child to match, starting with 1, the string even or odd, or an equation ( eg. :nth-of-type(even), :nth-of-type(4n) )

Because jQuery's implementation of :nth- selectors is strictly derived from the CSS specification, the value of n is "1-indexed", meaning that the counting starts at 1. For other selector expressions such as .first() or .eq() jQuery follows JavaScript's "0-indexed" counting.

Further discussion of this usage can be found in the W3C CSS specification.

Example:

Find each span that is second in relation to its sibling spans.

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<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
  <meta charset="utf-8">
  <title>nth-of-type demo</title>
  <style>
  .nth {
    color: red;
  }
  </style>
  <script src="https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.7.1.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
 
<div>
  <span>John</span>,
  <b>Kim</b>,
  <span>Adam</span>,
  <b>Rafael</b>,
  <span>Oleg</span>
</div>
<div>
  <b>Dave</b>,
  <span>Ann</span>
</div>
<div>
  <i><span>Maurice</span></i>,
  <span>Richard</span>,
  <span>Ralph</span>,
  <span>Jason</span>
</div>
 
<script>
$( "span:nth-of-type(2)" )
  .append( "<span> is 2nd sibling span</span>" )
  .addClass( "nth" );
</script>
 
</body>
</html>

Demo: