 <p>Since they are inline, use <a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/white-space" rel="nofollow"><code>white-space:nowrap</code></a> to prevent the list items from appearing on a new line.</p> <p><a href="http://jsfiddle.net/ap3zkfn3/" rel="nofollow"><strong>Updated Example</strong></a></p> <pre><code>.drop_menu { white-space:nowrap; } .drop_menu &gt; li { white-space:normal; } </code></pre> <p>Since you don't want this to occur on the children <code>li</code> elements, set the <code>white-space</code> property value to <code>normal</code>.</p>