diff --git a/meson.build b/meson.build
index 4297703eb..ef28cfd0a 100644
--- a/meson.build
+++ b/meson.build
@@ -301,6 +301,11 @@ editline = dependency('libeditline', 'editline', version : '>=1.14', required :
 
 lowdown = dependency('lowdown', version : '>=0.9.0', required : true, include_type : 'system')
 
+# TODO(sterni): drop the corresponding #ifdef after NixOS 25.05 is EOL which still distributes lowdown < 1.4.0
+if lowdown.version().version_compare('>= 1.4.0')
+  add_project_arguments('-DLOWDOWN_SEPARATE_TERM_OPTS', language: 'cpp')
+endif
+
 # HACK(Qyriad): rapidcheck's pkg-config doesn't include the libs lol
 # Note: technically we 'check' for rapidcheck twice, for the internal-api-docs handling above,
 # but Meson will cache the result of the first one, and the required : arguments are different.
diff --git a/src/libcmd/markdown.cc b/src/libcmd/markdown.cc
index dbaab8c19..c1b32b43c 100644
--- a/src/libcmd/markdown.cc
+++ b/src/libcmd/markdown.cc
@@ -11,13 +11,28 @@ namespace nix {
 std::string renderMarkdownToTerminal(std::string_view markdown)
 {
     int windowWidth = getWindowSize().second;
+    size_t lowdown_cols = std::max(windowWidth - 5, 60);
 
-    struct lowdown_opts opts {
+    struct lowdown_opts opts{
         .type = LOWDOWN_TERM,
+#ifdef LOWDOWN_SEPARATE_TERM_OPTS
+        .term =
+            {
+                .cols = lowdown_cols,
+                .width = 0,
+                .hmargin = 0,
+                .hpadding = 4,
+                .vmargin = 0,
+                .centre = 0,
+            },
+        // maxdepth needs to be part of the ifdefs to match declaration order
         .maxdepth = 20,
-        .cols = (size_t) std::max(windowWidth - 5, 60),
+#else
+        .maxdepth = 20,
+        .cols = lowdown_cols,
         .hmargin = 0,
         .vmargin = 0,
+#endif /* LOWDOWN_SEPARATE_TERM_OPTS */
         .feat = LOWDOWN_COMMONMARK | LOWDOWN_FENCED | LOWDOWN_DEFLIST | LOWDOWN_TABLES,
         .oflags = LOWDOWN_TERM_NOLINK,
     };
diff --git a/tests/functional/repl_characterization/data/basic_repl.test b/tests/functional/repl_characterization/data/basic_repl.test
index a8dea6d7c..51cdb6fec 100644
--- a/tests/functional/repl_characterization/data/basic_repl.test
+++ b/tests/functional/repl_characterization/data/basic_repl.test
@@ -1,12 +1,11 @@
   nix-repl> 1 + 1
   2
 
-  nix-repl> :doc builtins.head
-  Synopsis: builtins.head list
+  nix-repl> :doc builtins.add
+  Synopsis: builtins.add e1 e2
+
+      Return the sum of the numbers e1 and e2.
 
-      Return the first element of a list; abort evaluation if
-      the argument isn’t a list or is an empty list. You can
-      test whether a list is empty by comparing it with [].
 
   nix-repl> f = a: "" + a