diff --git a/docs/coding-style.rst b/docs/coding-style.rst
index 55dfa196a2..c43d20c7b2 100644
--- a/docs/coding-style.rst
+++ b/docs/coding-style.rst
@@ -714,19 +714,6 @@ does **not** guarantee a NULL-terminated buffer, which makes it
 extremely dangerous to use. Instead, use one of the replacement
 functions provided by libvirt:
 
-::
-
-  virStrncpy(char *dest, const char *src, size_t n, size_t destbytes)
-
-The first two arguments have the same meaning as for strncpy,
-namely the destination and source of the copy operation. Unlike
-strncpy, the function will always copy exactly the number of bytes
-requested and make sure the destination is NULL-terminated, as the
-source is required to be; sanity checks are performed to ensure
-the size of the destination, as specified by the last argument, is
-sufficient for the operation to succeed. On success, 0 is
-returned; on failure, a value <0 is returned instead.
-
 ::
 
   virStrcpy(char *dest, const char *src, size_t destbytes)
diff --git a/src/libvirt_private.syms b/src/libvirt_private.syms
index c4052aa41b..767d665613 100644
--- a/src/libvirt_private.syms
+++ b/src/libvirt_private.syms
@@ -3266,7 +3266,6 @@ virStringStripIPv6Brackets;
 virStringStripSuffix;
 virStringToUpper;
 virStringTrimOptionalNewline;
-virStrncpy;
 virStrToDouble;
 virStrToLong_i;
 virStrToLong_l;
diff --git a/src/util/virstring.c b/src/util/virstring.c
index a35cd8ba76..1d6141b5c1 100644
--- a/src/util/virstring.c
+++ b/src/util/virstring.c
@@ -452,50 +452,6 @@ virDoubleToStr(char **strp, double number)
 }
 
 
-/**
- * virStrncpy:
- *
- * @dest: destination buffer
- * @src: source buffer
- * @n: number of bytes to copy
- * @destbytes: number of bytes the destination can accommodate
- *
- * Copies the first @n bytes of @src to @dest.
- *
- * @src must be NULL-terminated; if successful, @dest is guaranteed to
- * be NULL-terminated as well.
- *
- * @n must be a reasonable value, that is, it must not exceed either
- * the length of @src or the size of @dest. For the latter constraint,
- * the fact that @dest needs to accommodate a NULL byte in addition to
- * the bytes copied from @src must be taken into account.
- *
- * If you want to copy *all* of @src to @dest, use virStrcpy() or
- * virStrcpyStatic() instead.
- *
- * Returns: 0 on success, <0 on failure.
- */
-int
-virStrncpy(char *dest, const char *src, size_t n, size_t destbytes)
-{
-    size_t src_len = strlen(src);
-
-    /* As a special case, -1 means "copy the entire string".
-     *
-     * This is to avoid calling strlen() twice, once in the virStrcpy()
-     * wrapper and once here for bound checking purposes. */
-    if (n == -1)
-        n = src_len;
-
-    if (n > src_len || n > (destbytes - 1))
-        return -1;
-
-    memcpy(dest, src, n);
-    dest[n] = '\0';
-
-    return 0;
-}
-
 /**
  * virStrcpy:
  *
diff --git a/src/util/virstring.h b/src/util/virstring.h
index da1fe86ffc..e688495574 100644
--- a/src/util/virstring.h
+++ b/src/util/virstring.h
@@ -97,8 +97,6 @@ void virSkipSpacesBackwards(const char *str, char **endp)
 
 bool virStringIsEmpty(const char *str);
 
-int virStrncpy(char *dest, const char *src, size_t n, size_t destbytes)
-    G_GNUC_WARN_UNUSED_RESULT;
 int virStrcpy(char *dest, const char *src, size_t destbytes);
 #define virStrcpyStatic(dest, src) virStrcpy((dest), (src), sizeof(dest))