The definition of styling is:
“Design or make in a particular form”
Since HTML does style content, like we have <i>, we can display content in lists, make content bold, use heading by using <h1>,<h2>...so on. For me all of this does qualify as styling. So, Can HTML be considered styling?
HTML has elements for both describing semantics and style. However HTML that mixes style and semantics often becomes difficult to maintain. For example, changing the style of certain elements consistently across a site might involve searching and replacing in multiple documents. CSS was introduced to solve this problem, giving a clear distinction between content and style and making it easy to apply site-wide styling.
While the styling elements in HTML still exist and can be used, it is preferable to use CSS instead.