diff --git a/pkgs/applications/science/math/sage/patches/sphinx-3.5-code-output.patch b/pkgs/applications/science/math/sage/patches/sphinx-3.5-code-output.patch
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..f17897d4c89
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pkgs/applications/science/math/sage/patches/sphinx-3.5-code-output.patch
@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+diff --git a/src/sage/misc/sagedoc.py b/src/sage/misc/sagedoc.py
+index 6bad826a88..f4d7b8651c 100644
+--- a/src/sage/misc/sagedoc.py
++++ b/src/sage/misc/sagedoc.py
+@@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ see :trac:`12849`::
+     ....:     for line in fobj:
+     ....:         if "#sage.symbolic.expression.Expression.numerical_approx" in line:
+     ....:             print(line)
+-    <code class="sig-name descname">numerical_approx</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em class="sig-param"><span class="n">prec</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="default_value">None</span></em>, <em class="sig-param"><span class="n">digits</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="default_value">None</span></em>, <em class="sig-param"><span class="n">algorithm</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="default_value">None</span></em><span class="sig-paren">)</span>...
++    <code class="sig-name descname"><span class="pre">numerical_approx</span></code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em class="sig-param"><span class="n"><span class="pre">prec</span></span><span class="o"><span class="pre">=</span></span><span class="default_value"><span class="pre">None</span></span></em>, <em class="sig-param"><span class="n"><span class="pre">digits</span></span><span class="o"><span class="pre">=</span></span><span class="default_value"><span class="pre">None</span></span></em>, <em class="sig-param"><span class="n"><span class="pre">algorithm</span></span><span class="o"><span class="pre">=</span></span><span class="default_value"><span class="pre">None</span></span></em><span class="sig-paren">)</span>...
+ 
+ Check that sphinx is not imported at Sage start-up::
+ 
diff --git a/pkgs/applications/science/math/sage/sage-src.nix b/pkgs/applications/science/math/sage/sage-src.nix
index 3051f5d5e50..57234c660a5 100644
--- a/pkgs/applications/science/math/sage/sage-src.nix
+++ b/pkgs/applications/science/math/sage/sage-src.nix
@@ -79,6 +79,13 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
     # ignore a deprecation warning for usage of `cmp` in the attrs library in the doctests
     ./patches/ignore-cmp-deprecation.patch
 
+    # sphinx 3.5 pretty-prints code slightly differently than sphinx
+    # 3.1--3.3. a similar patch is available at the sphinx 4 ticket
+    # (https://trac.sagemath.org/ticket/31696), but sphinx 3.5 uses
+    # <code> tags while sphinx 4 uses <span> tags so we cannot just
+    # import the patch from trac.
+    ./patches/sphinx-3.5-code-output.patch
+
     # remove use of matplotlib function deprecated in 3.4
     # https://trac.sagemath.org/ticket/31827
     (fetchSageDiff {