-remove all files that can be rebuilt at all.
-There's a danger here that you may remove a file that needs a more
-obscure utility to rebuild it (especially if you started from a source
-distribution).
-</Para>
-</ListItem></VarListEntry>
+Delete everything from the current directory that can be reconstructed
+with this Makefile. This typically includes everything deleted by
+<literal>distclean</literal>, plus more: C source files produced by
+Bison, tags tables, Info files, and so on.</para>
+
+<para>One exception, however: <literal>make maintainer-clean</literal>
+should not delete <filename>configure</filename> even if
+<filename>configure</filename> can be remade using a rule in the
+<filename>Makefile</filename>. More generally, <literal>make
+maintainer-clean</literal> should not delete anything that needs to
+exist in order to run <filename>configure</filename> and then begin to
+build the program.</para>
+</listitem>
+</varlistentry>
+