diff --git a/pandas/core/base.py b/pandas/core/base.py
index c02ba88ea7fda..7b3152595e4b2 100644
--- a/pandas/core/base.py
+++ b/pandas/core/base.py
@@ -1234,7 +1234,7 @@ def value_counts(self, normalize=False, sort=True, ascending=False,
             If True then the object returned will contain the relative
             frequencies of the unique values.
         sort : boolean, default True
-            Sort by values.
+            Sort by frequencies.
         ascending : boolean, default False
             Sort in ascending order.
         bins : integer, optional