diff --git a/Doc/library/codecs.rst b/Doc/library/codecs.rst
index d2a0c8b33690..b3246376846d 100644
--- a/Doc/library/codecs.rst
+++ b/Doc/library/codecs.rst
@@ -638,7 +638,7 @@ define in order to be compatible with the Python codec registry.
 
    .. method:: setstate(state)
 
-      Set the state of the encoder to *state*. *state* must be a decoder state
+      Set the state of the decoder to *state*. *state* must be a decoder state
       returned by :meth:`getstate`.