diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/btree.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/btree.sgml
index c16825e2ea..996932e35d 100644
--- a/doc/src/sgml/btree.sgml
+++ b/doc/src/sgml/btree.sgml
@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@
 
  <para>
   <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> includes an implementation of the
-  standard <acronym>btree</acronym> (multi-way binary tree) index data
+  standard <acronym>btree</acronym> (multi-way balanced tree) index data
   structure.  Any data type that can be sorted into a well-defined linear
   order can be indexed by a btree index.  The only limitation is that an
   index entry cannot exceed approximately one-third of a page (after TOAST