diff --git i/doc/src/sgml/ref/vacuumdb.sgml w/doc/src/sgml/ref/vacuumdb.sgml
index 223b986..d76c18e 100644
--- i/doc/src/sgml/ref/vacuumdb.sgml
+++ w/doc/src/sgml/ref/vacuumdb.sgml
@@ -403,9 +403,10 @@ PostgreSQL documentation
        </para>
 
        <para>
-        This option is useful to analyze a database that was newly populated
+        This option is useful to analyze a database that current has no,
+        or bad, statistics e.g. it was newly populated
         from a restored dump or by <command>pg_upgrade</command>.  This option
-        will try to create some statistics as fast as possible, to make the
+        will create coarse statistics as fast as possible, to make the
         database usable, and then produce full statistics in the subsequent
         stages.
        </para>