category_description() │ WP 1.0.0

Let's display the description of category 3 (category id) using the echo operator. echo is needed to display the category description because the function just returns the description and doesn't display anything.

<?php echo category_description(3); ?>

As a result, we get a description of category 3.

$cat_desc = category_description();

if ( $cat_desc ) {
	echo '<div class="cat__desc">'. $cat_desc .'</div>';
}
else {
	echo '<div class="no__cat__desc">No description!</div>';
}

Let's display the category description using a slug (an alternate category name) instead of an ID as in the last example. To do this, get the ID using get_category_by_slug().

$term = get_category_by_slug( 'category-slug' );

if( $term ){
	echo category_description( $term->term_id ); 

	// or
	echo esc_html( $term->description );
}

Suppose our category description uses the shortcode [image=/link_to_image] we use this shortcode in other places, but when we display the category description, we don't need it. To remove it, we will use the filter:

add_filter( 'term_description', 'clear_term_description_image_shortcode' );

function clear_term_description_image_shortcode( $value ){

	return preg_replace( '/[image=[^]]*]/', '', $value );
}