CSS pseudo-class vs. pseudo-selector

Question

This is a bit of a pedantic question, but perhaps worth asking. Is there, mechanically, a difference between a pseudo-class and a pseudo-selector in CSS? We use the term interchangeably around here, but it seems that there's a reason for the two terms. Is there any use to differentiating the two?

Answer 1

A pseudo-class is a specified thing, while pseudo-selector is a made up word.

(Meanwhile, a pseudo-class matches an element when certain conditions are met (e.g. the mouse is pointing at it, or it is the first child of its parent), while a pseudo-element is something that can be matched but isn't a real or whole element, such as "Thing before an element" or "First line of text in an element".)

Answer 2

pseudo-selector does make the odd appearance on the W3C site, but my initial search suggests that it is an old old term that has now been replaced with pseudo-class:

pseudo-selector

the page pseudo-selector :first

http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/CR-css-print-20040225/#section-selectors

CSS has a "lang" pseudo-selector that automatically uses the appropriate attribute depending on the media type

http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-media-types/

pseudo-class

5.11.4 The language pseudo-class: :lang

http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS2/selector.html#lang

...and many more.

Pseudo-elements and pseudo-classes

Then there's the descriptions for pseudo-elements and pseudo-classes:

http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS2/selector.html#pseudo-elements

So it looks to me as though pseudo-selectors are no longer in vogue...