diff --git a/docs/hooks.txt b/docs/hooks.txt
index 976d5c2a944..b275adc29ca 100644
--- a/docs/hooks.txt
+++ b/docs/hooks.txt
@@ -3004,7 +3004,8 @@ $terms: Search terms, for highlighting
 &$titleSnippet: Label for the link representing the search result. Typically the
   article title.
 $result: The SearchResult object
-$terms: String of the search terms entered
+$terms: array of search terms extracted by SearchDatabase search engines
+  (may not be populated by other search engines).
 $specialSearch: The SpecialSearch object
 &$query: Array of query string parameters for the link representing the search
   result.
diff --git a/includes/search/SearchEngine.php b/includes/search/SearchEngine.php
index 9771e8881ed..7cc0ba12a83 100644
--- a/includes/search/SearchEngine.php
+++ b/includes/search/SearchEngine.php
@@ -46,7 +46,7 @@ abstract class SearchEngine {
 	/** @var int */
 	protected $offset = 0;
 
-	/** @var array|string */
+	/** @var string[] */
 	protected $searchTerms = [];
 
 	/** @var bool */
diff --git a/includes/search/SearchHighlighter.php b/includes/search/SearchHighlighter.php
index 469502fd436..6c01f799d5c 100644
--- a/includes/search/SearchHighlighter.php
+++ b/includes/search/SearchHighlighter.php
@@ -44,7 +44,7 @@ class SearchHighlighter {
 	 * Wikitext highlighting when $wgAdvancedSearchHighlighting = true
 	 *
 	 * @param string $text
-	 * @param array $terms Terms to highlight (not html escaped but
+	 * @param string[] $terms Terms to highlight (not html escaped but
 	 *   regex escaped via SearchDatabase::regexTerm())
 	 * @param int $contextlines
 	 * @param int $contextchars
@@ -502,7 +502,7 @@ class SearchHighlighter {
 	 * Used when $wgAdvancedSearchHighlighting is false.
 	 *
 	 * @param string $text
-	 * @param array $terms Escaped for regex by SearchDatabase::regexTerm()
+	 * @param string[] $terms Escaped for regex by SearchDatabase::regexTerm()
 	 * @param int $contextlines
 	 * @param int $contextchars
 	 * @return string
diff --git a/includes/search/SearchResult.php b/includes/search/SearchResult.php
index f85c58fe2d2..30d7be7fea7 100644
--- a/includes/search/SearchResult.php
+++ b/includes/search/SearchResult.php
@@ -146,7 +146,7 @@ class SearchResult {
 	}
 
 	/**
-	 * @param array $terms Terms to highlight
+	 * @param string[] $terms Terms to highlight
 	 * @return string Highlighted text snippet, null (and not '') if not supported
 	 */
 	function getTextSnippet( $terms ) {
diff --git a/includes/search/SearchResultSet.php b/includes/search/SearchResultSet.php
index 3d3b4460bdf..92e2a17d6d6 100644
--- a/includes/search/SearchResultSet.php
+++ b/includes/search/SearchResultSet.php
@@ -95,7 +95,7 @@ class SearchResultSet implements Countable, IteratorAggregate {
 	 * the search terms as parsed by this engine in a text extract.
 	 * STUB
 	 *
-	 * @return array
+	 * @return string[]
 	 */
 	function termMatches() {
 		return [];
diff --git a/includes/search/SqlSearchResultSet.php b/includes/search/SqlSearchResultSet.php
index 022dc0a6437..31ac83b688f 100644
--- a/includes/search/SqlSearchResultSet.php
+++ b/includes/search/SqlSearchResultSet.php
@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ use Wikimedia\Rdbms\ResultWrapper;
 class SqlSearchResultSet extends SearchResultSet {
 	/** @var ResultWrapper Result object from database */
 	protected $resultSet;
-	/** @var string Requested search query */
+	/** @var string[] Requested search query */
 	protected $terms;
 	/** @var int|null Total number of hits for $terms */
 	protected $totalHits;
diff --git a/includes/widget/search/FullSearchResultWidget.php b/includes/widget/search/FullSearchResultWidget.php
index 66fc030ca4f..4d246e45e33 100644
--- a/includes/widget/search/FullSearchResultWidget.php
+++ b/includes/widget/search/FullSearchResultWidget.php
@@ -30,7 +30,7 @@ class FullSearchResultWidget implements SearchResultWidget {
 
 	/**
 	 * @param SearchResult $result The result to render
-	 * @param string $terms Terms to be highlighted (@see SearchResult::getTextSnippet)
+	 * @param string[] $terms Terms to be highlighted (@see SearchResult::getTextSnippet)
 	 * @param int $position The result position, including offset
 	 * @return string HTML
 	 */
@@ -117,7 +117,7 @@ class FullSearchResultWidget implements SearchResultWidget {
 	 * title with highlighted words).
 	 *
 	 * @param SearchResult $result
-	 * @param string $terms
+	 * @param string[] $terms
 	 * @param int $position
 	 * @return string HTML
 	 */
diff --git a/includes/widget/search/InterwikiSearchResultWidget.php b/includes/widget/search/InterwikiSearchResultWidget.php
index 095c30a6294..745bc12c61f 100644
--- a/includes/widget/search/InterwikiSearchResultWidget.php
+++ b/includes/widget/search/InterwikiSearchResultWidget.php
@@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ class InterwikiSearchResultWidget implements SearchResultWidget {
 
 	/**
 	 * @param SearchResult $result The result to render
-	 * @param string $terms Terms to be highlighted (@see SearchResult::getTextSnippet)
+	 * @param string[] $terms Terms to be highlighted (@see SearchResult::getTextSnippet)
 	 * @param int $position The result position, including offset
 	 * @return string HTML
 	 */
diff --git a/includes/widget/search/SearchResultWidget.php b/includes/widget/search/SearchResultWidget.php
index 3fbdbef2a92..4f0a271e5b9 100644
--- a/includes/widget/search/SearchResultWidget.php
+++ b/includes/widget/search/SearchResultWidget.php
@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ use SearchResult;
 interface SearchResultWidget {
 	/**
 	 * @param SearchResult $result The result to render
-	 * @param string $terms Terms to be highlighted (@see SearchResult::getTextSnippet)
+	 * @param string[] $terms Terms to be highlighted (@see SearchResult::getTextSnippet)
 	 * @param int $position The zero indexed result position, including offset
 	 * @return string HTML
 	 */
diff --git a/includes/widget/search/SimpleSearchResultWidget.php b/includes/widget/search/SimpleSearchResultWidget.php
index 552cbaf8bad..86a04b18390 100644
--- a/includes/widget/search/SimpleSearchResultWidget.php
+++ b/includes/widget/search/SimpleSearchResultWidget.php
@@ -26,7 +26,7 @@ class SimpleSearchResultWidget implements SearchResultWidget {
 
 	/**
 	 * @param SearchResult $result The result to render
-	 * @param string $terms Terms to be highlighted (@see SearchResult::getTextSnippet)
+	 * @param string[] $terms Terms to be highlighted (@see SearchResult::getTextSnippet)
 	 * @param int $position The result position, including offset
 	 * @return string HTML
 	 */
diff --git a/languages/Language.php b/languages/Language.php
index 4e663c250c0..9d7ce091252 100644
--- a/languages/Language.php
+++ b/languages/Language.php
@@ -2967,8 +2967,8 @@ class Language {
 	}
 
 	/**
-	 * @param array $termsArray
-	 * @return array
+	 * @param string[] $termsArray
+	 * @return string[]
 	 */
 	function convertForSearchResult( $termsArray ) {
 		# some languages, e.g. Chinese, need to do a conversion
diff --git a/languages/classes/LanguageZh.php b/languages/classes/LanguageZh.php
index 455678d2087..9b9720d7a80 100644
--- a/languages/classes/LanguageZh.php
+++ b/languages/classes/LanguageZh.php
@@ -188,8 +188,8 @@ class LanguageZh extends LanguageZh_hans {
 	}
 
 	/**
-	 * @param array $termsArray
-	 * @return array
+	 * @param string[] $termsArray
+	 * @return string[]
 	 */
 	function convertForSearchResult( $termsArray ) {
 		$terms = implode( '|', $termsArray );