diff --git a/Doc/reference/datamodel.rst b/Doc/reference/datamodel.rst
index 40301230700..47fbcacad5f 100644
--- a/Doc/reference/datamodel.rst
+++ b/Doc/reference/datamodel.rst
@@ -1205,7 +1205,7 @@ Basic customization
    as necessary before returning it.
 
    If :meth:`__new__` is invoked during object construction and it returns an
-   instance or subclass of *cls*, then the new instance’s :meth:`__init__` method
+   instance of *cls*, then the new instance’s :meth:`__init__` method
    will be invoked like ``__init__(self[, ...])``, where *self* is the new instance
    and the remaining arguments are the same as were passed to the object constructor.