## first selector

Description: Selects the first matched DOM element.

- #### version added: 1.0jQuery( ":first" )

The `:first` pseudo-class is equivalent to `:eq( 0 )`. It could also be written as `:lt( 1 )`. While this matches only a single element, :first-child can match more than one: One for each parent.

### Additional Notes:

- Because `:first` is a jQuery extension and not part of the CSS specification, queries using `:first` cannot take advantage of the performance boost provided by the native DOM `querySelectorAll()` method. To achieve the best performance when using `:first` to select elements, first select the elements using a pure CSS selector, then use `.filter(":first")`.
- Selected elements are in the order of their appearance in the document.

## Example:

Finds the first table row.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 |
    <!doctype html><html lang="en"><head>  <meta charset="utf-8">  <title>first demo</title>  <style>  td {    color: blue;    font-weight: bold;  }  </style>  <script src="https://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.10.2.js"></script></head><body> <table>  <tr><td>Row 1</td></tr>  <tr><td>Row 2</td></tr>  <tr><td>Row 3</td></tr></table> <script>$( "tr:first" ).css( "font-style", "italic" );</script> </body></html>

#### Demo: