ntp guru question: what is "kernel time discipline"?

[Dean S. Messing]

I've been fooling around with ntp and reading the docs to find an
option to keep the kernel from going into "11 minute mode" (aka
"kernel time sync" in the ntp log file).

The docs, however, keep referring to something called "kernel time
discipline" and but never seem to define it.  I haven't been able to
find the def.  using google either.  So I turn to you, the experts.

Is this another name for "kernel time sync" or something else?

The only other thing that makes sense to me is that it refers to ntp's
ability to "discipline" the tick and frequency parameters of the kernel's
system clock but that's just a guess.

Dean