diff --git a/Objects/stringobject.c b/Objects/stringobject.c
index b96aaf85b62d..6ac15f5b64d9 100644
--- a/Objects/stringobject.c
+++ b/Objects/stringobject.c
@@ -1502,8 +1502,8 @@ PyDoc_STRVAR(split__doc__,
 Return a list of the words in the string S, using sep as the\n\
 delimiter string.  If maxsplit is given, at most maxsplit\n\
 splits are done. If sep is not specified or is None, any\n\
-whitespace string is a separator and leading and trailing\n\
-whitespace is stripped before splitting.");
+whitespace string is a separator and empty strings are removed\n\
+from the result.");
 
 static PyObject *
 string_split(PyStringObject *self, PyObject *args)
diff --git a/Objects/unicodeobject.c b/Objects/unicodeobject.c
index 935d8b665281..6d693fe7b69b 100644
--- a/Objects/unicodeobject.c
+++ b/Objects/unicodeobject.c
@@ -7495,8 +7495,8 @@ PyDoc_STRVAR(split__doc__,
 Return a list of the words in S, using sep as the\n\
 delimiter string.  If maxsplit is given, at most maxsplit\n\
 splits are done. If sep is not specified or is None, any\n\
-whitespace string is a separator and leading and trailing\n\
-whitespace is stripped before splitting.");
+whitespace string is a separator and empty strings are\n\
+removed from the result.");
 
 static PyObject*
 unicode_split(PyUnicodeObject *self, PyObject *args)