diff --git a/meson.build b/meson.build
index 2d44e7948d..a8976c2037 100644
--- a/meson.build
+++ b/meson.build
@@ -395,10 +395,6 @@ possible_cc_flags = [
         '-Wno-error=#warnings',  # clang
         '-Wno-string-plus-int',  # clang
 
-        # Disable -Wmaybe-uninitialized, since it's noisy on gcc 8 with
-        # optimizations enabled, producing essentially false positives.
-        '-Wno-maybe-uninitialized',
-
         '-ffast-math',
         '-fno-common',
         '-fdiagnostics-show-option',
@@ -409,6 +405,15 @@ possible_cc_flags = [
         '--param=ssp-buffer-size=4',
 ]
 
+# Disable -Wmaybe-unitialized when compiling with -Os/-O1/-O3/etc. There are
+# too many false positives with gcc >= 8. Effectively, we only test with -O0
+# and -O2; this should be enough to catch most important cases without too much
+# busywork. See https://github.com/systemd/systemd/pull/19226.
+if cc.get_id() == 'gcc' and (not '02'.contains(get_option('optimization')) or
+                             cc.version().version_compare('<10'))
+        possible_cc_flags += '-Wno-maybe-uninitialized'
+endif
+
 # --as-needed and --no-undefined are provided by meson by default,
 # run mesonconf to see what is enabled
 possible_link_flags = [