# .parent()

Categories: Traversing > Tree Traversal

## .parent( [selector] ) Returns: jQuery

Description: Get the parent of each element in the current set of matched elements, optionally filtered by a selector.

- #### version added: 1.0.parent( [selector] )

  selectorA string containing a selector expression to match elements against.

Given a jQuery object that represents a set of DOM elements, the `.parent()` method allows us to search through the parents of these elements in the DOM tree and construct a new jQuery object from the matching elements. The `.parents()` and `.parent()` methods are similar, except that the latter only travels a single level up the DOM tree.

The method optionally accepts a selector expression of the same type that we can pass to the `$()` function. If the selector is supplied, the elements will be filtered by testing whether they match it.

Consider a page with a basic nested list on it:

    <ul class="level-1">
      <li class="item-i">I</li>
      <li class="item-ii">II
        <ul class="level-2">
          <li class="item-a">A</li>
          <li class="item-b">B
            <ul class="level-3">
              <li class="item-1">1</li>
              <li class="item-2">2</li>
              <li class="item-3">3</li>
            </ul>
          </li>
          <li class="item-c">C</li>
        </ul>
      </li>
      <li class="item-iii">III</li>
    </ul>

If we begin at item A, we can find its parents:

    $('li.item-a').parent().css('background-color', 'red');

The result of this call is a red background for the level-2 list. Since we do not supply a selector expression, the parent element is unequivocally included as part of the object. If we had supplied one, the element would be tested for a match before it was included.

### Examples:

#### Example: Shows the parent of each element as (parent > child). Check the View Source to see the raw html.

    <!DOCTYPE html>
    <html>
    <head>
      <style>
      div,p { margin:10px; }
      </style>
      <script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.7rc2.js"></script>
    </head>
    <body>
      <div>div,
        <span>span, </span>
        <b>b </b>

      </div>
      <p>p,
        <span>span,
          <em>em </em>
        </span>
      </p>

      <div>div,
        <strong>strong,
          <span>span, </span>
          <em>em,
            <b>b, </b>
          </em>

        </strong>
        <b>b </b>
      </div>
    <script>

        $("*", document.body).each(function () {
          var parentTag = $(this).parent().get(0).tagName;
          $(this).prepend(document.createTextNode(parentTag + " > "));
        });
    </script>

    </body>
    </html>

#### Demo:

#### Example: Find the parent element of each paragraph with a class "selected".

    <!DOCTYPE html>
    <html>
    <head>
      <script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.7rc2.js"></script>
    </head>
    <body>
      <div><p>Hello</p></div>

      <div class="selected"><p>Hello Again</p></div>

    <script>$("p").parent(".selected").css("background", "yellow");</script>

    </body>
    </html>

#### Demo: