Change the tone of a sentence, the emphasis that italics alone cannot carry

Published on May 15, 2026 — 1 min read

HTML
accessibility
semantics
text

`` — The emphasis

The  element adds stress emphasis: it changes the meaning of a sentence by stressing a word or phrase. Browsers render it in italics by default, but what matters is the change in meaning, not the style.

When to use it

You want to shift the stress in your sentence. "You must click Save" does not mean the same as "You must click Save." If you just want italics for styling (book titles, foreign terms), use  or CSS.

What you gain

Accessibility: in theory, screen readers modify intonation for . In practice, most do not by default (NVDA, JAWS, VoiceOver, TalkBack). The value is in the code:  distinguishes stress emphasis (change in meaning) from visual italics (), and future tools will be able to exploit that distinction.

Code example

<p>You <em>must</em> save your work before closing.</p>
<p>The meeting is on <em>Tuesday</em>, not Wednesday.</p>

Change the tone of a sentence, the emphasis that italics alone cannot carry

`<em>` — The emphasis

When to use it

What you gain

Code example

Further reading

<em> — The emphasis

When to use it

What you gain

Code example

Further reading

`<em>` — The emphasis