diff --git a/lucene/core/src/java/org/apache/lucene/analysis/tokenattributes/CharTermAttributeImpl.java b/lucene/core/src/java/org/apache/lucene/analysis/tokenattributes/CharTermAttributeImpl.java
index 9a5b9fa29bb..355f4176097 100644
--- a/lucene/core/src/java/org/apache/lucene/analysis/tokenattributes/CharTermAttributeImpl.java
+++ b/lucene/core/src/java/org/apache/lucene/analysis/tokenattributes/CharTermAttributeImpl.java
@@ -71,6 +71,9 @@ public class CharTermAttributeImpl extends AttributeImpl implements CharTermAttr
 
   @Override
   public final CharTermAttribute setLength(int length) {
+    if (length < 0) {
+      throw new IllegalArgumentException("length " + length + " must not be negative");
+    }
     if (length > termBuffer.length)
       throw new IllegalArgumentException("length " + length + " exceeds the size of the termBuffer (" + termBuffer.length + ")");
     termLength = length;
diff --git a/lucene/core/src/test/org/apache/lucene/analysis/tokenattributes/TestCharTermAttributeImpl.java b/lucene/core/src/test/org/apache/lucene/analysis/tokenattributes/TestCharTermAttributeImpl.java
index 81dd576be08..30821291fc8 100644
--- a/lucene/core/src/test/org/apache/lucene/analysis/tokenattributes/TestCharTermAttributeImpl.java
+++ b/lucene/core/src/test/org/apache/lucene/analysis/tokenattributes/TestCharTermAttributeImpl.java
@@ -42,6 +42,16 @@ public class TestCharTermAttributeImpl extends LuceneTestCase {
     }
   }
 
+  public void testSetLength() {
+    CharTermAttributeImpl t = new CharTermAttributeImpl();
+    char[] content = "hello".toCharArray();
+    t.copyBuffer(content, 0, content.length);
+    IllegalArgumentException expected = expectThrows(IllegalArgumentException.class, () -> {
+      t.setLength(-1);
+    });
+    assertTrue(expected.getMessage().contains("must not be negative"));
+  }
+
   public void testGrow() {
     CharTermAttributeImpl t = new CharTermAttributeImpl();
     StringBuilder buf = new StringBuilder("ab");