diff --git a/CHANGES.rst b/CHANGES.rst
index c257b3b11b1..99e1c9bf89f 100644
--- a/CHANGES.rst
+++ b/CHANGES.rst
@@ -16,5 +16,7 @@ Features added
 Bugs fixed
 ----------
 
+* #13392: Fix argument type for ``jieba.load_userdict()``.
+
 Testing
 -------
diff --git a/sphinx/search/zh.py b/sphinx/search/zh.py
index a63b6d63aa0..4eb94bf599b 100644
--- a/sphinx/search/zh.py
+++ b/sphinx/search/zh.py
@@ -234,7 +234,7 @@ def init(self, options: dict[str, str]) -> None:
         if JIEBA:
             dict_path = options.get('dict', JIEBA_DEFAULT_DICT)
             if dict_path and Path(dict_path).is_file():
-                jieba.load_userdict(dict_path)
+                jieba.load_userdict(str(dict_path))
 
         self.stemmer = snowballstemmer.stemmer('english')