diff --git a/scripts/fingerprint-strings.nse b/scripts/fingerprint-strings.nse
index ae37c4a98..a1bd3496d 100644
--- a/scripts/fingerprint-strings.nse
+++ b/scripts/fingerprint-strings.nse
@@ -6,6 +6,17 @@ local table = require "table"
 
 description = [[
 Prints the readable strings from service fingerprints of unknown services.
+
+Nmap's service and application version detection engine sends named probes to
+target services and tries to identify them based on the response. When there is
+no match, Nmap produces a service fingerprint for submission. Sometimes,
+inspecting this fingerprint can give clues as to the identity of the service.
+However, the fingerprint is encoded and wrapped to ensure it doesn't lose data,
+which can make it hard to read.
+
+This script simply unwraps the fingerprint and prints the readable ASCII strings
+it finds below the name of the probe it responded to. The probe names are taken
+from the nmap-service-probes file, not from the response.
 ]]
 
 ---