How to tell jQuery to stop searching DOM when the first element is found?
<p>From what I understand adding <code>.first()</code> or <code>:first</code> to a query doesn't stop DOM search after the first match, it just tells jQuery to take 1st element out of matched collection. </p>

<p>If it is true, then is there a way to stop DOM search after the first match? For example if I know that the result of this query will always be a single element, how to tell jQuery to not waste time searching further?</p>
