I\'ve realized that Chrome, it seems, will not allow me to hide  in a . Firefox will.
I need to hide the          
        
For HTML5, you can use the 'hidden' attribute.
<option hidden>Hidden option</option>
It is not supported by IE < 11. But if you need only to hide a few elements, maybe it would be better to just set the hidden attribute in combination with disabled in comparison to adding/removing elements or doing not semantically correct constructions.
<select>  
  <option>Option1</option>
  <option>Option2</option>
  <option hidden>Hidden Option</option>
</select>
Reference.
this one seems to work for me in chrome
$("#selectid span option").unwrap();
$("#selectid option:not([filterattr=filtervalue])").wrap('<span/>');
                                                                        I would suggest that you do not use the solutions that use a <span> wrapper because it isn't valid HTML, which could cause problems down the road. I think the preferred solution is to actually remove any options that you wish to hide, and restore them as needed. Using jQuery, you'll only need these 3 functions:
The first function will save the original contents of the select. Just to be safe, you may want to call this function when you load the page.
function setOriginalSelect ($select) {
    if ($select.data("originalHTML") == undefined) {
        $select.data("originalHTML", $select.html());
    } // If it's already there, don't re-set it
}
This next function calls the above function to ensure that the original contents have been saved, and then simply removes the options from the DOM.
function removeOptions ($select, $options) {
    setOriginalSelect($select);
    $options.remove();
 }
The last function can be used whenever you want to "reset" back to all the original options.
function restoreOptions ($select) {
    var ogHTML = $select.data("originalHTML");
    if (ogHTML != undefined) {
        $select.html(ogHTML);
    }
}
Note that all these functions expect that you're passing in jQuery elements. For example:
// in your search function...
var $s = $('select.someClass');
var $optionsThatDontMatchYourSearch= $s.find('options.someOtherClass');
restoreOptions($s); // Make sure you're working with a full deck
removeOptions($s, $optionsThatDontMatchYourSearch); // remove options not needed
Here is a working example: http://jsfiddle.net/9CYjy/23/
// Simplest way
var originalContent = $('select').html();
$('select').change(function() {
    $('select').html(originalContent); //Restore Original Content
    $('select option[myfilter=1]').remove(); // Filter my options
});
                                                                        You have to implement two methods for hiding. display: none works for FF, but not Chrome or IE. So the second method is wrapping the <option> in a <span> with display: none. FF won't do it (technically invalid HTML, per the spec) but Chrome and IE will and it will hide the option.
EDIT: Oh yeah, I already implemented this in jQuery:
jQuery.fn.toggleOption = function( show ) {
    jQuery( this ).toggle( show );
    if( show ) {
        if( jQuery( this ).parent( 'span.toggleOption' ).length )
            jQuery( this ).unwrap( );
    } else {
        if( jQuery( this ).parent( 'span.toggleOption' ).length == 0 )
            jQuery( this ).wrap( '<span class="toggleOption" style="display: none;" />' );
    }
};
EDIT 2: Here's how you would use this function:
jQuery(selector).toggleOption(true); // show option
jQuery(selector).toggleOption(false); // hide option
EDIT 3: Added extra check suggested by @user1521986
!!! WARNING !!!
Replace the second "IF" by "WHILE" or doesn't work !
jQuery.fn.toggleOption = function( show ) {
    jQuery( this ).toggle( show );
    if( show ) {
        while( jQuery( this ).parent( 'span.toggleOption' ).length )
            jQuery( this ).unwrap( );
    } else {
        jQuery( this ).wrap( '<span class="toggleOption" style="display: none;" />' );
    }
};