diff --git a/share/completions/kldload.fish b/share/completions/kldload.fish
index a0b27b67f..a8bbd9104 100644
--- a/share/completions/kldload.fish
+++ b/share/completions/kldload.fish
@@ -5,15 +5,15 @@ function __fish_list_kldload_options
     # is decidedly not. With 846 modules (FreeBSD 11.1), fish --profile 'complete -C"kldload "' returns the following:
     # 10671   11892698    > complete -C"kldload "
     # A 12 second completion delay is obviously out of the question, so don't provide a description unless there are
-    # fewer than 50 results.
+    # fewer than 50 results. (Update: now 200 after the switch to __kld_whatis.)
     # Additionally, we can halve the time by not shelling out to `whatis` if we know the man file for the kernel module
     # in question does not exist, since the paths are hardcoded.
     set -l kld_count (count $klds)
-    if test $kld_count -le 50 -a $kld_count -gt 0
+    if test $kld_count -le 200 -a $kld_count -gt 0
         # print name and description
         for kld in $klds
-            printf '%s\t%s\n' $kld (test -e /usr/share/man/man4/$kld.4.gz;
-				and __fish_whatis $kld; or echo "kernel module")
+            printf '%s\t%s\n' $kld (test -f /usr/share/man/man4/$kld.4.gz;
+				and __kld_whatis $kld; or echo "kernel module")[1]
         end
     else if test $kld_count -gt 0
         # print name only
@@ -24,6 +24,15 @@ function __fish_list_kldload_options
     end
 end
 
+# This is up to 10-50x faster than using __fish_whatis but it could someday break.
+# (zcat is part of the standard FreeBSD distribution.)
+# Without this, we can't reasonably show descriptions for most completions within our time budget.
+function __kld_whatis
+    set -l kld $argv[1]
+    set -l path /usr/share/man/man4/$kld.4.gz
+    zcat $path | string replace -rf '\.Nd "?([^"]+).*' '$1'
+end
+
 # Only attempt to match a local file if there isn't a match in /boot/kernel,
 # as odds are that is the desired source.
 complete -c kldload -xa '(__fish_list_kldload_options)'