diff --git a/gensim/summarization/keywords.py b/gensim/summarization/keywords.py
index db7c8a0dc7..2c85cf0bfe 100644
--- a/gensim/summarization/keywords.py
+++ b/gensim/summarization/keywords.py
@@ -302,7 +302,7 @@ def _extract_tokens(lemmas, scores, ratio, words):
 
     """
     lemmas.sort(key=lambda s: scores[s], reverse=True)
-    length = len(lemmas) * ratio if words is None else words
+    length = len(lemmas) * ratio if words is None else min(words, len(lemmas))
     return [(scores[lemmas[i]], lemmas[i],) for i in range(int(length))]
 
 
diff --git a/gensim/test/test_keywords.py b/gensim/test/test_keywords.py
index 6011c83df4..ffe2f32a8f 100644
--- a/gensim/test/test_keywords.py
+++ b/gensim/test/test_keywords.py
@@ -101,6 +101,12 @@ def test_text_keywords_without_graph_edges(self):
         kwds = keywords(text, deacc=False, scores=True)
         self.assertFalse(len(kwds))
 
+    def test_keywords_with_words_greater_than_lemmas(self):
+        # words parameter is greater than number of words in text variable
+        text = 'Test string small length'
+        kwds = keywords(text, words=5, split=True)
+        self.assertIsNotNone(kwds)
+
 
 if __name__ == '__main__':
     logging.basicConfig(format='%(asctime)s : %(levelname)s : %(message)s', level=logging.DEBUG)