The padding property in CSS is used to set the padding for an element. The padding is the space inside the border of an element, and it can be used to create space between the content of an element and its border.

Here is an example of how to use the padding property:

p {
padding: 10px;
}

In this example, the padding property sets the top, right, bottom, and left padding of the <p> element to 10 pixels.

The padding property can also accept additional values to set the padding for each side of the element separately.

p {
padding-top: 10px;
padding-right: 20px;
padding-bottom: 30px;
padding-left: 40px;
}

In this example, the padding-top property sets the top padding of the <p> element, the padding-right property sets the right padding, the padding-bottom property sets the bottom padding, and the padding-left property sets the left padding.

It is generally a good practice to use the padding property to create space between the content of an element and its border, rather than using the margin property or empty elements, to improve the accessibility and maintainability of your website.