diff --git a/pandas/core/groupby/generic.py b/pandas/core/groupby/generic.py
index c112d9b6a4b54..3d2575ec3ac96 100644
--- a/pandas/core/groupby/generic.py
+++ b/pandas/core/groupby/generic.py
@@ -746,7 +746,7 @@ def value_counts(
         normalize : bool, default False
             Return proportions rather than frequencies.
         sort : bool, default True
-            Sort by frequencies.
+            Sort by frequencies when True. Preserve the order of the data when False.
         ascending : bool, default False
             Sort in ascending order.
         bins : int or list of ints, optional
@@ -2303,7 +2303,7 @@ 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