Try it

<p><s>There will be a few tickets available at the box office tonight.</s></p>
<p>SOLD OUT!</p>

s {
  /* Add your styles here */
}

Attributes

This element only includes the global attributes.

The presence of the s element is not announced by most screen reading technology in its default configuration. It can be made to be announced by using the CSS content property, along with the ::before and ::after pseudo-elements.

css

s::before,
s::after {
  clip-path: inset(100%);
  clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);
  height: 1px;
  overflow: hidden;
  position: absolute;
  white-space: nowrap;
  width: 1px;
}
s::before {
  content: " [start of stricken text] ";
}
s::after {
  content: " [end of stricken text] ";
}

Some people who use screen readers deliberately disable announcing content that creates extra verbosity. Because of this, it is important to not abuse this technique and only apply it in situations where not knowing content has been struck out would adversely affect understanding.

Examples

css

.sold-out {
  text-decoration: line-through;
}

html

<s>Today's Special: Salmon</s> SOLD OUT<br />
<span class="sold-out">Today's Special: Salmon</span> SOLD OUT

Result

Technical summary

Content categories	Phrasing content, flow content.
Permitted content	Phrasing content.
Tag omission	None, both the starting and ending tag are mandatory.
Permitted parents	Any element that accepts phrasing content.
Implicit ARIA role	`deletion`
Permitted ARIA roles	Any
DOM interface	`HTMLElement`

Specifications

Specification
HTML # the-s-element

Browser compatibility

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This page was last modified on May 20, 2026 by MDN contributors.