diff --git a/gtk/abicheck.sh b/gtk/abicheck.sh
index 0e9a85f10b..c426f8c318 100755
--- a/gtk/abicheck.sh
+++ b/gtk/abicheck.sh
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 #! /bin/sh
 
-cpp -P -DG_OS_UNIX -DGTK_WINDOWING_X11 ${srcdir:-.}/gtk.symbols | sed -e '/^$/d' -e 's/ G_GNUC.*$//' | sort > expected-abi
+cpp -P -DG_OS_UNIX -DGTK_WINDOWING_X11 ${srcdir:-.}/gtk.symbols | sed -e '/^$/d' -e 's/ G_GNUC.*$//' -e 's/ PRIVATE//' | sort > expected-abi
 nm -D .libs/libgtk-x11-2.0.so | grep " T " | cut -d ' ' -f 3 | sort > actual-abi
 diff -u expected-abi actual-abi && rm expected-abi actual-abi