Question

How can I force the framework to validate a specific field?

I saw somewhere that I can call $("form").validate().form() to force the entire form to validate, but I only want to check just the one field.

Answer 1

You can use the element method of the Validator object:

element( element )           Returns: Boolean

Validates a single element, returns true if it is valid, false otherwise.

Example:

$("#myform").validate().element( "#myselect" );