Semantic use of <ruby> to convey ruby annotations

“Ruby” are short runs of text alongside the base text, typically used in East Asian documents to indicate pronunciation or to provide a short annotation.

In the following Japanese text, み, め, いじょう are ruby annotations that indicate to the reader how the kanji characters 見, 目, 以上, respectively, should be pronounced.

In this example, an author has used the semantic HTML <ruby> element to convey ruby annotations. This approach enables assistive technologies to programmatically determine the presence of the ruby annotations.