diff --git a/extensions/markdown/src/documentLinkProvider.ts b/extensions/markdown/src/documentLinkProvider.ts
index 1b922b43cef56..2e932e9ca4803 100644
--- a/extensions/markdown/src/documentLinkProvider.ts
+++ b/extensions/markdown/src/documentLinkProvider.ts
@@ -43,7 +43,7 @@ function matchAll(pattern: RegExp, text: string): Array<RegExpMatchArray> {
 export default class LinkProvider implements vscode.DocumentLinkProvider {
 	private linkPattern = /(\[[^\]]*\]\(\s*?)(((((?=.*\)\)+)|(?=.*\)\]+))[^\s\)]+?)|([^\s]+)))\)/g;
 	private referenceLinkPattern = /(\[([^\]]+)\]\[\s*?)(\w*)\]/g;
-	private definitionPattern = /^([\t ]*\[(\w+)\]:\s*)(\S+)/gm;
+	private definitionPattern = /^([\t ]*\[([^\]]+)\]:\s*)(\S+)/gm;
 
 	public provideDocumentLinks(
 		document: vscode.TextDocument,