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jQuery prev() Method

❮ jQuery Traversing Methods

Example

Return the previous sibling element of each <li> element with class name "start":

$(document).ready(function(){
  $("li.start").prev().css({"color": "red", "border": "2px solid red"});
});

Result:

    ul (parent)
  • li (sibling)
  • li (sibling)
  • li (sibling with class name "start")
  • li (sibling)
  • li (sibling)
Try it Yourself »

Definition and Usage

The prev() method returns the previous sibling element of the selected element.

Sibling elements are elements that share the same parent.

The DOM tree: This method traverse backwards along the previous sibling of DOM elements.

Related methods:

  • prevAll() - returns all previous sibling elements of the selected element
  • prevUntil() - returns all previous sibling elements between two given arguments

Syntax

$(selector).prev(filter)

Parameter Description
filter Optional. Specifies a selector expression to narrow down the previous sibling search

Try it Yourself - Examples

Select the previous sibling of each <div> element
How to select the previous sibling element of each <div> element.

Narrow down the search
How to select the previous sibling <p> element of each <div> element.


❮ jQuery Traversing Methods