diff --git a/Doc/library/xml.sax.utils.rst b/Doc/library/xml.sax.utils.rst
index e46fefdf997510..ab4606bcf9fe6c 100644
--- a/Doc/library/xml.sax.utils.rst
+++ b/Doc/library/xml.sax.utils.rst
@@ -25,6 +25,11 @@ or as base classes.
    replaced with its corresponding value.  The characters ``'&'``, ``'<'`` and
    ``'>'`` are always escaped, even if *entities* is provided.
 
+   .. note::
+
+      This function should only be used to escape characters that
+      can't be used directly in XML. Do not use this function as a general
+      string translation function.
 
 .. function:: unescape(data, entities={})