diff --git a/components/clarity-vscode/syntaxes/clarity.tmLanguage.json b/components/clarity-vscode/syntaxes/clarity.tmLanguage.json
index c55246cb6..ad71e119e 100644
--- a/components/clarity-vscode/syntaxes/clarity.tmLanguage.json
+++ b/components/clarity-vscode/syntaxes/clarity.tmLanguage.json
@@ -46,6 +46,7 @@
       "name": "meta.define-function",
       "patterns": [
         { "include": "#expression" },
+        { "include": "#user-func" },
         {
           "begin": "(?x) (\\() \\s* ([a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z0-9_\\-\\!\\?]*) \\s*",
           "end": "(\\))",
diff --git a/components/clarity-vscode/test-data/clean/contracts/contract.clar b/components/clarity-vscode/test-data/clean/contracts/contract.clar
index 8dcea6ad1..eba67721b 100644
--- a/components/clarity-vscode/test-data/clean/contracts/contract.clar
+++ b/components/clarity-vscode/test-data/clean/contracts/contract.clar
@@ -16,3 +16,11 @@
 (define-public (call-bns)
   (contract-call? 'SP000000000000000000002Q6VF78.bns can-namespace-be-registered 0x627463)
 )
+
+(define-private (say-hello-to (to (string-ascii 10)))
+  (ok to)
+)
+
+(define-public (say-hello-dap)
+  (say-hello-to "dap")
+)