diff --git a/pandas/core/base.py b/pandas/core/base.py
index f907089f77132..5bc0fc3e1af63 100644
--- a/pandas/core/base.py
+++ b/pandas/core/base.py
@@ -825,7 +825,7 @@ def value_counts(
             If True then the object returned will contain the relative
             frequencies of the unique values.
         sort : bool, default True
-            Sort by frequencies.
+            Sort by frequencies when True. Preserve the order of the data when False.
         ascending : bool, default False
             Sort in ascending order.
         bins : int, optional
diff --git a/pandas/core/frame.py b/pandas/core/frame.py
index 051ebfff47f83..2a5e5fdc199fa 100644
--- a/pandas/core/frame.py
+++ b/pandas/core/frame.py
@@ -6974,7 +6974,7 @@ def value_counts(
         normalize : bool, default False
             Return proportions rather than frequencies.
         sort : bool, default True
-            Sort by frequencies.
+            Sort by frequencies when True. Sort by DataFrame column values when False.
         ascending : bool, default False
             Sort in ascending order.
         dropna : bool, default True