diff --git a/pandas/io/parsers/readers.py b/pandas/io/parsers/readers.py
index d00fc3b15976c..d6bb29b055b91 100644
--- a/pandas/io/parsers/readers.py
+++ b/pandas/io/parsers/readers.py
@@ -268,7 +268,7 @@ class _read_shared(TypedDict, Generic[HashableT], total=False):
 skipfooter : int, default 0
     Number of lines at bottom of file to skip (Unsupported with ``engine='c'``).
 nrows : int, optional
-    Number of rows of file to read. Useful for reading pieces of large files.
+    Maximum number of rows of data to return (excluding the column header). Useful for reading pieces of large files.
 na_values : Hashable, Iterable of Hashable or dict of {{Hashable : Iterable}}, optional
     Additional strings to recognize as ``NA``/``NaN``. If ``dict`` passed, specific
     per-column ``NA`` values.  By default the following values are interpreted as