diff --git a/src/doc/reference/src/visibility-and-privacy.md b/src/doc/reference/src/visibility-and-privacy.md
index 50d3e7507d0ed..f431872e3478e 100644
--- a/src/doc/reference/src/visibility-and-privacy.md
+++ b/src/doc/reference/src/visibility-and-privacy.md
@@ -39,8 +39,9 @@ pub enum State {
 With the notion of an item being either public or private, Rust allows item
 accesses in two cases:
 
-1. If an item is public, then it can be used externally through any of its
-   public ancestors.
+1. If an item is public, then it can be accessed externally from some module
+   `m` if you can access all the item's parent modules from `m`. You can
+   also potentially be able to name the item through re-exports. See below.
 2. If an item is private, it may be accessed by the current module and its
    descendants.