Get a set of elements containing the unique ancestors of the matched set of elements (except for the root element). The matched elements can be filtered with an optional expression. (optional) An expression to filter the ancestors with Find all parent elements of each span. <html><body><div><p><span>Hello</span></p><span>Hello Again</span></div></body></html> $("span").parents() [ <body>...</body>, <div>...</div>, <p><span>Hello</span></p> ] Find all parent elements of each span that is a paragraph. <html><body><div><p><span>Hello</span></p><span>Hello Again</span></div></body></html> $("span").parents("p") [ <p><span>Hello</span></p> ]