diff --git a/docs/curl.1 b/docs/curl.1
index 60452715630466a3ed7a2f16a3f63670eb3a9847..2bd044c54c26f15c1858358d6485a23013f774f6 100644
--- a/docs/curl.1
+++ b/docs/curl.1
@@ -361,9 +361,10 @@ DER and ENG are recognized types.  If not specified, PEM is assumed.
 
 If this option is used several times, the last one will be used.
 .IP "--cacert <CA certificate>"
-(SSL) Tells curl to use the specified certificate file to verify the
-peer. The file may contain multiple CA certificates. The certificate(s) must
-be in PEM format.
+(SSL) Tells curl to use the specified certificate file to verify the peer. The
+file may contain multiple CA certificates. The certificate(s) must be in PEM
+format. Normally curl is built to use a default file for this, so this option
+is typically used to alter that default file.
 
 curl recognizes the environment variable named 'CURL_CA_BUNDLE' if that is
 set, and uses the given path as a path to a CA cert bundle. This option