What is the purpose of !important in CSS?

In CSS, the !important directive is used to increase the priority of a specific style rule. If multiple rules apply to the same element and conflict, the rule with !important will take precedence, regardless of selector specificity.

Example:

p { color: blue !important; }
p { color: red; }

In this case, the text in <p> will be blue, despite the second rule setting the color to red.

Use !important cautiously, as it complicates style maintenance and can lead to unexpected results when overriding styles.