diff --git a/init/fish_function.fish b/init/fish_function.fish
index 73b65be66..3bef671ff 100644
--- a/init/fish_function.fish
+++ b/init/fish_function.fish
@@ -252,7 +252,7 @@ end
 #
 
 function __fish_describe_command -d "Command used to find descriptions for commands"
-	apropos $argv | sed -ne "s/^$argv\([^ ]*\) *([18]) *- \(.*\)\$/$argv\1"\t"\2/p" 
+	apropos $argv | awk -v FS=" +- +" '{split($1, names, ", "); for (name in names) if (names[name] ~ /^'"$argv"'.* *\([18]\)/) { sub("\\([18]\\)", "", names[name]); print names[name] "\t" $2; } }'
 end
 
 #