i

Represents text in an alternate voice, mood, or language — foreign words, technical terms, thoughts, ship names, or taxonomic designations.

Description

The  element represents text in an alternate voice, mood, or quality — a span of text that is offset from normal prose without conveying extra emphasis or importance. Common uses include foreign language phrases, technical terms, thoughts, and ship names.

VB styles  with font-synthesis: none to prevent faux italic glyphs and font-optical-sizing: auto for variable fonts. Inside blockquotes, italic is de-emphasized to prevent double visual offset.

When to Use

Foreign words: et cetera, c'est la vie (add lang attribute)
Thoughts: Internal monologue in fiction
Ship names: USS Enterprise, Titanic
Taxonomic names: Tyrannosaurus rex, Homo sapiens
Technical terms: First use of a term in a non-definitional context

When NOT to Use

For stress emphasis — use 
For importance — use 
For defining terms — use <dfn>
For work titles — use <cite>
Purely for visual styling — use CSS font-style: italic

Examples

i vs em

Both render as italic, but they have different semantics:

Element	Semantics	Screen Reader
`<i>`	Alternate voice — no meaning change	Not announced differently
`<em>`	Stress emphasis — changes meaning	May be announced with emphasis

CSS Reference

The blockquote reset prevents double visual offset — since the blockquote is already indented/styled, italic inside it uses font-weight: medium instead of font-style: italic.

Accessibility

 does not convey emphasis to screen readers — it is purely visual
For foreign words, always add the lang attribute so screen readers can switch pronunciation
Do not rely on italic alone to convey meaning — combine with context

 — Stress emphasis that changes meaning
 — Draw attention without importance (bold counterpart to )
<cite> — Titles of creative works (also italic)
<dfn> — Defining instance of a term (italic + semi-bold)
 — Strong importance (bold counterpart to )

i