Is it possible to change only the alpha of a rgba background colour on hover?

Question

I have a set of <a> tags with differing rgba background colours but the same alpha. Is it possible to write a single css style that will change only the opacity of the rgba attribute?

A quick example of the code:

 <a href="#"><img src="" /><div class="brown">Link 1</div></a>
 <a href="#"><img src="" /><div class="green">Link 2</div></a> 

And the styles

a {display: block; position: relative}
.brown {position: absolute; bottom: 0; background-color: rgba(118,76,41,.8);}
.green {position: absolute; bottom: 0; background-color: rgba(51,91,11,.8);}

What I would like to do is write a single style that would change the opacity when the <a> is hovered over, yet keep the colour unchanged.

Something like

a:hover .green, a:hover .brown {background-color: rgba(inherit,inherit,inherit,1);}

Answer 1

This is now possible with custom properties:

.brown { --rgb: 118, 76, 41; }
.green { --rgb: 51, 91, 11; }

a { display: block; position: relative; }
div { position: absolute; bottom: 0; background-color: rgba(var(--rgb), 0.8); }
a:hover div { background-color: rgba(var(--rgb), 1); }

To understand how this works, see How do I apply opacity to a CSS color variable?

If custom properties are not an option, see the original answer below.

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Unfortunately, no, you'll have to specify the red, green and blue values again for each individual class:

a { display: block; position: relative; }

.brown { position: absolute; bottom: 0; background-color: rgba(118, 76, 41, 0.8); }
a:hover .brown { background-color: rgba(118, 76, 41, 1); }

.green { position: absolute; bottom: 0; background-color: rgba(51, 91, 11, 0.8); }
a:hover .green { background-color: rgba(51, 91, 11, 1); }

You can only use the inherit keyword alone as a value for the property, and even then the use of inherit isn't appropriate here.