diff --git a/man2/getpriority.2 b/man2/getpriority.2
index ecbef057f..619956f5c 100644
--- a/man2/getpriority.2
+++ b/man2/getpriority.2
@@ -90,11 +90,13 @@ A zero value for
 .I who
 denotes (respectively) the calling process, the process group of the
 calling process, or the real user ID of the calling process.
+
 The
 .I prio
 argument is a value in the range \-20 to 19 (but see NOTES below).
+with \-20 being the highest priority and 19 being the lowest priority.
 The default priority is 0;
-lower priorities cause more favorable scheduling.
+lower values give a process a higher scheduling priority.
 
 The
 .BR getpriority ()
@@ -140,7 +142,8 @@ In addition to the errors indicated above,
 may fail if:
 .TP
 .B EACCES
-The caller attempted to lower a process priority, but did not
+The caller attempted to set a lower nice value
+(i.e., a higher process priority), but did not
 have the required privilege (on Linux: did not have the
 .B CAP_SYS_NICE
 capability).