diff --git a/Doc/library/math.rst b/Doc/library/math.rst
index 1eb2d717af0..39fde821711 100644
--- a/Doc/library/math.rst
+++ b/Doc/library/math.rst
@@ -125,7 +125,7 @@ Number-theoretic and representation functions
 .. function:: modf(x)
 
    Return the fractional and integer parts of *x*.  Both results carry the sign
-   of *x*, and both are floats.  The integer part is returned as a real.
+   of *x* and are floats.
 
 
 .. function:: trunc(x)
diff --git a/Modules/mathmodule.c b/Modules/mathmodule.c
index 01d3991d71d..952d56a48ad 100644
--- a/Modules/mathmodule.c
+++ b/Modules/mathmodule.c
@@ -767,7 +767,7 @@ PyDoc_STRVAR(math_modf_doc,
 "modf(x)\n"
 "\n"
 "Return the fractional and integer parts of x.  Both results carry the sign\n"
-"of x.  The integer part is returned as a real.");
+"of x and are floats.");
 
 /* A decent logarithm is easy to compute even for huge longs, but libm can't
    do that by itself -- loghelper can.  func is log or log10, and name is