diff --git a/Documentation/rev-list-options.txt b/Documentation/rev-list-options.txt
index fd86ed12dc9..bee54a61778 100644
--- a/Documentation/rev-list-options.txt
+++ b/Documentation/rev-list-options.txt
@@ -746,7 +746,11 @@ format, often found in email messages.
 +
 `--date=short` shows only the date, but not the time, in `YYYY-MM-DD` format.
 +
-`--date=raw` shows the date in the internal raw Git format `%s %z` format.
+`--date=raw` shows the date as seconds since the epoch (1970-01-01
+00:00:00 UTC), followed by a space, and then the timezone as an offset
+from UTC (a `+` or `-` with four digits; the first two are hours, and
+the second two are minutes). I.e., as if the timestamp were formatted
+with `strftime("%s %z")`).
 Note that the `-local` option does not affect the seconds-since-epoch
 value (which is always measured in UTC), but does switch the accompanying
 timezone value.