jQuery :disabled Selector

As with other pseudo-class selectors (those that begin with a ":"), it is recommended to precede it with a tag name or some other selector; otherwise, the universal selector ("*") is implied. In other words, the bare $(':disabled') is equivalent to $('*:disabled'), so $('input:disabled') or similar should be used instead.

Although their resulting selections are usually the same, the :disabled selector is subtly different from the [disabled] attribute selector; :disabled checks the boolean (true/false) value of the element’s disabled property while [disabled] checks for the existence of the disabled attribute.

The :disabled selector should only be used for selecting HTML elements that support the disabled attribute (<button>, <input>, <optgroup>, <option>, <select>, and <textarea>).