# CSS flash cards: Novice level

51 CSS terms at the Novice level, as flash cards.

Updated: October 16, 2026

- [Study these as flash cards](https://www.ask-codey.com/decks/css/1/flash)
- [Play Memory with them](https://www.ask-codey.com/games/memory?category=css&level=1)

## Terms in this deck

- [Adjacent sibling combinator](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/adjacent-sibling-combinator): The + between selectors: matches the element right after another.
- [Background color](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/background-color): Fills an element's background with a color.
- [Block](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/block): An element that starts on a new line and takes the full width.
- [Border](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/border): Draws a line around an element: width, style, color.
- [Box model](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/box-model): Every element is a box: content, padding, border, margin.
- [Browser default styles](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/browser-default-styles): Styles the browser adds before yours, like blue links and heading sizes.
- [Cascade](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/cascade): How CSS decides which rule wins when rules disagree.
- [Child combinator](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/child-combinator): The > between selectors: matches direct children only.
- [Class selector](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/class-selector): Starts with a dot and selects elements with that class.
- [Color](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/color): The color property sets text color; colors can be names, hex or rgb().
- [Comment](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/comment-software-development): A note between /\* and \*/ that is ignored by CSS.
- [Content box](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/content-box): The innermost part of an element, where the content goes.
- [CSS](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/css): The language that controls how a web page looks: colors, fonts, spacing, layout.
- [CSS Rule](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/css-rule): A CSS Rule defines the style that you want to apply to an element once you have targeted…
- [Declaration](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/declaration-css): One styling instruction: property: value;
- [Declaration block](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/declaration-block): Everything between a rule's curly braces.
- [Descendant combinator](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/descendant-combinator): A space between selectors: matches elements anywhere inside another.
- [em unit](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/em-unit): A size equal to the element's font size.
- [External stylesheet](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/external-stylesheet): A separate .css file that pages load with a <link> tag.
- [Font family](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/font-family): Picks the typeface, with fallbacks.
- [Font size](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/font-size): Sets how big the text is.
- [Font weight](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/font-weight): Sets how thick the text is, like bold or 700.
- [General sibling combinator](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/general-sibling-combinator): The ~ between selectors: matches every later sibling.
- [Height](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/height): Sets how tall an element is.
- [Hex color](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/hex-color): A color written as # plus six digits for red, green and blue.
- [ID selector](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/id-selector): Starts with # and selects the one element with that id.
- [Inheritance](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/inheritance-css): Some properties, like color and font, pass down from parent to children.
- [Inline](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/inline): An element that sits within a line of text, only as wide as its content.
- [Inline style](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/inline-style): CSS written on one element with the style attribute.
- [Internal stylesheet](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/internal-stylesheet): CSS inside a <style> tag that styles only that page.
- [Kebab Case](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/kebab-case): All letters are lower case. Each word is separated by an dash.
- [Link element](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/link-element): This loads an external stylesheet.
- [Margin](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/margin): Space outside an element's border that pushes neighbors away.
- [Named color](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/named-color): A color CSS knows by name, like teal or tomato.
- [Padding](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/padding): Space inside an element, between its content and border.
- [Percentage](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/percentage): A size worked out from the parent, so it grows and shrinks with it.
- [Pixel](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/pixel): px: a fixed unit of size on screen.
- [Property](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/property-css-2): The thing you want to change, like color or width.
- [rem unit](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/rem-unit): A size equal to the root (html) font size, usually 16px.
- [RGB color](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/rgb-color): A color mixed from red, green and blue, 0-255 each.
- [Selector](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/selector): A CSS Selector allows you to identify (target) one or more elements in the DOM to apply…
- [Selector list](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/selector-list): Several selectors separated by commas, sharing one set of styles.
- [Snake Case](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/snake-case): All letters are lower case, each word is separated by an underscore.
- [Source order](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/source-order): When two rules are equally strong, the later one wins.
- [Specificity](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/specificity): How precise a selector is; the more specific rule wins.
- [Stylesheet](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/stylesheet): A file or block of CSS rules that styles one or many pages.
- [Text alignment](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/text-alignment): Lines text up left, right or center.
- [Type selector](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/type-selector): Selects every element with a given tag name, like p or img.
- [Universal selector](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/universal-selector): The \* selector: matches every element.
- [Value](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/value): What you set a property to, like red or 16px.
- [Width](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/width): Sets how wide an element is.

[Read them in the glossary](https://www.ask-codey.com/glossary/subjects/css/novice)

Source: https://www.ask-codey.com/decks/css/novice