diff --git a/spacy/pipeline/entity_linker.py b/spacy/pipeline/entity_linker.py
index 03cbe4dc5..7ee0676ee 100644
--- a/spacy/pipeline/entity_linker.py
+++ b/spacy/pipeline/entity_linker.py
@@ -247,7 +247,7 @@ class EntityLinker(TrainablePipe):
             if not self.use_gold_ents:
                 return scorer(examples, **kwargs)
             else:
-                examples = self._augment_examples(examples)
+                examples = self._ensure_ents(examples)
                 docs = self.pipe(
                     (eg.predicted for eg in examples),
                 )
@@ -257,7 +257,7 @@ class EntityLinker(TrainablePipe):
 
         self.scorer = _score_augmented
 
-    def _augment_examples(self, examples: Iterable[Example]) -> Iterable[Example]:
+    def _ensure_ents(self, examples: Iterable[Example]) -> Iterable[Example]:
         """If use_gold_ents is true, set the gold entities to (a copy of) eg.predicted."""
         if not self.use_gold_ents:
             return examples
@@ -311,7 +311,7 @@ class EntityLinker(TrainablePipe):
         nO = self.kb.entity_vector_length
         doc_sample = []
         vector_sample = []
-        examples = self._augment_examples(islice(get_examples(), 10))
+        examples = self._ensure_ents(islice(get_examples(), 10))
         for eg in examples:
             doc = eg.x
             doc_sample.append(doc)
@@ -379,7 +379,7 @@ class EntityLinker(TrainablePipe):
         losses.setdefault(self.name, 0.0)
         if not examples:
             return losses
-        examples = self._augment_examples(examples)
+        examples = self._ensure_ents(examples)
         validate_examples(examples, "EntityLinker.update")
 
         # make sure we have something to learn from, if not, short-circuit