diff --git a/Doc/lib/libheapq.tex b/Doc/lib/libheapq.tex
index 32cc25e77a5..e403a3a10de 100644
--- a/Doc/lib/libheapq.tex
+++ b/Doc/lib/libheapq.tex
@@ -96,8 +96,8 @@ timestamped entries from multiple log files).  Returns an iterator over
 over the sorted values.
 
 Similar to \code{sorted(itertools.chain(*iterables))} but returns an iterable,
-does not pull the data into memory all at once, and reduces the number of
-comparisons by assuming that each of the input streams is already sorted.            
+does not pull the data into memory all at once, and assumes that each of the
+input streams is already sorted (smallest to largest).            
 \versionadded{2.6}
 \end{funcdesc}
 
diff --git a/Lib/heapq.py b/Lib/heapq.py
index 5d4142581af..0f67236929a 100644
--- a/Lib/heapq.py
+++ b/Lib/heapq.py
@@ -312,8 +312,8 @@ def merge(*iterables):
     '''Merge multiple sorted inputs into a single sorted output.
 
     Similar to sorted(itertools.chain(*iterables)) but returns an iterable,
-    does not pull the data into memory all at once, and reduces the number
-    of comparisons by assuming that each of the input streams is already sorted.
+    does not pull the data into memory all at once, and assumes that each of
+    the input streams is already sorted (smallest to largest).
 
     >>> list(merge([1,3,5,7], [0,2,4,8], [5,10,15,20], [], [25]))
     [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 7, 8, 10, 15, 20, 25]