diff --git a/Doc/library/binascii.rst b/Doc/library/binascii.rst
index 02ec5d854a9..c92a8e160a9 100644
--- a/Doc/library/binascii.rst
+++ b/Doc/library/binascii.rst
@@ -145,7 +145,7 @@ The :mod:`binascii` module defines the following functions:
 
    Return the hexadecimal representation of the binary *data*.  Every byte of
    *data* is converted into the corresponding 2-digit hex representation.  The
-   resulting string is therefore twice as long as the length of *data*.
+   returned bytes object is therefore twice as long as the length of *data*.
 
 
 .. function:: a2b_hex(hexstr)
diff --git a/Modules/binascii.c b/Modules/binascii.c
index 386c2deefd5..0f4970141d3 100644
--- a/Modules/binascii.c
+++ b/Modules/binascii.c
@@ -1122,7 +1122,8 @@ binascii_hexlify(PyObject *self, PyObject *args)
 PyDoc_STRVAR(doc_hexlify,
 "b2a_hex(data) -> s; Hexadecimal representation of binary data.\n\
 \n\
-This function is also available as \"hexlify()\".");
+The return value is a bytes object.  This function is also\n\
+available as \"hexlify()\".");
 
 
 static int