diff --git a/Doc/library/argparse.rst b/Doc/library/argparse.rst
index c4e2dbcac2156c..5f7cecd2cad18e 100644
--- a/Doc/library/argparse.rst
+++ b/Doc/library/argparse.rst
@@ -1122,6 +1122,9 @@ is used when no command-line argument was present::
    >>> parser.parse_args([])
    Namespace(foo=42)
 
+For required_ arguments, the ``default`` value is ignored. For example, this
+applies to positional arguments with nargs_ values other than ``?`` or ``*``,
+or optional arguments marked as ``required=True``.
 
 Providing ``default=argparse.SUPPRESS`` causes no attribute to be added if the
 command-line argument was not present::