diff --git a/scrapy/trunk/scrapy/utils/markup.py b/scrapy/trunk/scrapy/utils/markup.py
index 6ae05a8b7..ee878c09e 100644
--- a/scrapy/trunk/scrapy/utils/markup.py
+++ b/scrapy/trunk/scrapy/utils/markup.py
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ Functions for dealing with markup text
 import re
 import htmlentitydefs
 
-_ent_re = re.compile(r'&(#?)(.+?);')
+_ent_re = re.compile(r'&(#?)([^&;]+);')
 _tag_re = re.compile(r'<[a-zA-Z\/!].*?>', re.DOTALL)
 
 def remove_entities(text, keep=(), remove_illegal=True):
@@ -15,9 +15,9 @@ def remove_entities(text, keep=(), remove_illegal=True):
 
     If 'keep' is passed (with a list of entity names) those entities will
     be kept (they won't be removed).
-    
+
     It supports both numeric (&#nnnn;) and named (&nbsp; &gt;) entities.
-    
+
     If remove_illegal is True, entities that can't be converted are removed.
     If remove_illegal is False, entities that can't be converted are kept "as
     is". For more information see the tests.