diff --git a/Lib/textwrap.py b/Lib/textwrap.py
index 841de9baecf..98bedd27ea3 100644
--- a/Lib/textwrap.py
+++ b/Lib/textwrap.py
@@ -63,10 +63,7 @@ class TextWrapper:
         Append to the last line of truncated text.
     """
 
-    unicode_whitespace_trans = {}
-    uspace = ord(' ')
-    for x in _whitespace:
-        unicode_whitespace_trans[ord(x)] = uspace
+    unicode_whitespace_trans = dict.fromkeys(map(ord, _whitespace), ord(' '))
 
     # This funky little regex is just the trick for splitting
     # text up into word-wrappable chunks.  E.g.
diff --git a/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Library/2022-01-27-13-30-02.bpo-46544.oFDVWj.rst b/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Library/2022-01-27-13-30-02.bpo-46544.oFDVWj.rst
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..63b47e55f1b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Library/2022-01-27-13-30-02.bpo-46544.oFDVWj.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Don't leak ``x`` & ``uspace`` intermediate vars in
+:class:`textwrap.TextWrapper`.