diff --git a/Doc/library/unittest.rst b/Doc/library/unittest.rst
index f3bd78057d3..06fd78176e0 100644
--- a/Doc/library/unittest.rst
+++ b/Doc/library/unittest.rst
@@ -907,9 +907,9 @@ Test cases
    .. method:: assertNotRegexpMatches(text, regexp, msg=None)
 
       Verifies that a *regexp* search does not match *text*.  Fails with an error
-      message including the pattern and the *text*.  *regexp* may be
-      a regular expression object or a string containing a regular expression
-      suitable for use by :func:`re.search`.
+      message including the pattern and the part of *text* that matches.  *regexp*
+      may be a regular expression object or a string containing a regular
+      expression suitable for use by :func:`re.search`.
 
       .. versionadded:: 2.7
 
diff --git a/Lib/unittest/case.py b/Lib/unittest/case.py
index cbbe2b5962e..5c434d9e31f 100644
--- a/Lib/unittest/case.py
+++ b/Lib/unittest/case.py
@@ -945,6 +945,7 @@ class TestCase(object):
             callable_obj(*args, **kwargs)
 
     def assertRegexpMatches(self, text, expected_regexp, msg=None):
+        """Fail the test unless the text matches the regular expression."""
         if isinstance(expected_regexp, basestring):
             expected_regexp = re.compile(expected_regexp)
         if not expected_regexp.search(text):
@@ -953,6 +954,7 @@ class TestCase(object):
             raise self.failureException(msg)
 
     def assertNotRegexpMatches(self, text, unexpected_regexp, msg=None):
+        """Fail the test if the text matches the regular expression."""
         if isinstance(unexpected_regexp, basestring):
             unexpected_regexp = re.compile(unexpected_regexp)
         match = unexpected_regexp.search(text)