diff --git a/mypy/typeshed/stdlib/argparse.pyi b/mypy/typeshed/stdlib/argparse.pyi
index ad54660cc45d..0a56aa4f4b59 100644
--- a/mypy/typeshed/stdlib/argparse.pyi
+++ b/mypy/typeshed/stdlib/argparse.pyi
@@ -62,6 +62,15 @@ _T = TypeVar("_T")
 _ActionT = TypeVar("_ActionT", bound=Action)
 _ArgumentParserT = TypeVar("_ArgumentParserT", bound=ArgumentParser)
 _N = TypeVar("_N")
+# more precisely, Literal["store", "store_const", "store_true",
+# "store_false", "append", "append_const", "count", "help", "version",
+# "extend"], but using this would make it hard to annotate callers
+# that don't use a literal argument
+_ActionStr = str
+# more precisely, Literal["?", "*", "+", "...", "A...",
+# "==SUPPRESS=="], but using this would make it hard to annotate
+# callers that don't use a literal argument
+_NArgsStr = str
 
 ONE_OR_MORE: Literal["+"]
 OPTIONAL: Literal["?"]
@@ -106,11 +115,8 @@ class _ActionsContainer:
     def add_argument(
         self,
         *name_or_flags: str,
-        action: Literal[
-            "store", "store_const", "store_true", "store_false", "append", "append_const", "count", "help", "version", "extend"
-        ]
-        | type[Action] = ...,
-        nargs: int | Literal["?", "*", "+", "...", "A...", "==SUPPRESS=="] | _SUPPRESS_T = ...,
+        action: _ActionStr | type[Action] = ...,
+        nargs: int | _NArgsStr | _SUPPRESS_T = ...,
         const: Any = ...,
         default: Any = ...,
         type: Callable[[str], _T] | FileType = ...,