diff --git a/AUTHORS b/AUTHORS
index 062f565c9ce..f507fea75e9 100644
--- a/AUTHORS
+++ b/AUTHORS
@@ -374,6 +374,7 @@ Tomer Keren
 Tony Narlock
 Tor Colvin
 Trevor Bekolay
+Tushar Sadhwani
 Tyler Goodlet
 Tzu-ping Chung
 Vasily Kuznetsov
diff --git a/changelog/11146.bugfix.rst b/changelog/11146.bugfix.rst
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..03b468f3018
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changelog/11146.bugfix.rst
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+- Prevent constants at the top of file from being detected as docstrings.
diff --git a/src/_pytest/assertion/rewrite.py b/src/_pytest/assertion/rewrite.py
index 157903faf7c..9bf79f1e107 100644
--- a/src/_pytest/assertion/rewrite.py
+++ b/src/_pytest/assertion/rewrite.py
@@ -676,6 +676,7 @@ def run(self, mod: ast.Module) -> None:
                 expect_docstring
                 and isinstance(item, ast.Expr)
                 and isinstance(item.value, ast.Constant)
+                and isinstance(item.value.value, str)
             ):
                 doc = item.value.value
                 if self.is_rewrite_disabled(doc):
diff --git a/testing/test_assertrewrite.py b/testing/test_assertrewrite.py
index d0180320400..e1b71ded69c 100644
--- a/testing/test_assertrewrite.py
+++ b/testing/test_assertrewrite.py
@@ -2042,3 +2042,17 @@ def test_max_increased_verbosity(self, pytester: Pytester) -> None:
         self.create_test_file(pytester, DEFAULT_REPR_MAX_SIZE * 10)
         result = pytester.runpytest("-vv")
         result.stdout.no_fnmatch_line("*xxx...xxx*")
+
+
+class TestIssue11140:
+    def test_constant_not_picked_as_module_docstring(self, pytester: Pytester) -> None:
+        pytester.makepyfile(
+            """\
+            0
+
+            def test_foo():
+                pass
+            """
+        )
+        result = pytester.runpytest()
+        assert result.ret == 0