diff --git a/docs/painless/painless-syntax.asciidoc b/docs/painless/painless-syntax.asciidoc
index 79e830c05d21c..6d424d01f2625 100644
--- a/docs/painless/painless-syntax.asciidoc
+++ b/docs/painless/painless-syntax.asciidoc
@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ Painless also supports the `for in` syntax from Groovy:
 
 [source,painless]
 ---------------------------------------------------------
-for (item : list) {
+for (def item : list) {
   ...
 }
 ---------------------------------------------------------