diff --git a/Doc/library/netrc.rst b/Doc/library/netrc.rst
--- a/Doc/library/netrc.rst
+++ b/Doc/library/netrc.rst
@@ -40,13 +40,17 @@ netrc Objects
 A :class:`netrc` instance has the following methods:
 
 
-.. method:: netrc.authenticators(host)
+.. method:: netrc.authenticators(host[, login])
 
    Return a 3-tuple ``(login, account, password)`` of authenticators for *host*.
    If the netrc file did not contain an entry for the given host, return the tuple
    associated with the 'default' entry.  If neither matching host nor default entry
    is available, return ``None``.
 
+   If *login* is given, only return a tuple for this login. If no
+   entry in the netrc file matches the requested combination of *host*
+   and *login*, return ``None``.
+
 
 .. method:: netrc.__repr__()
 
diff --git a/Lib/netrc.py b/Lib/netrc.py
--- a/Lib/netrc.py
+++ b/Lib/netrc.py
@@ -95,7 +95,11 @@ class netrc:
                                           file, lexer.lineno)
 
     def authenticators(self, host, login=None):
-        """Return a (user, account, password) tuple for given host."""
+        """Return a (user, account, password) tuple for given host.
+
+        When provided, the optional login argument selects a tuple
+        with a matching user name.
+        """
         if host in self.hosts:
             if login:
                 for a in self.allhosts[host]: