diff --git a/lib/spack/spack/cmd/common/arguments.py b/lib/spack/spack/cmd/common/arguments.py
index 53e75a4f2c8..f091b9cf759 100644
--- a/lib/spack/spack/cmd/common/arguments.py
+++ b/lib/spack/spack/cmd/common/arguments.py
@@ -75,7 +75,7 @@ def _specs(self, **kwargs):
 
 
 _arguments['constraint'] = Args(
-    'constraint', nargs='*', action=ConstraintAction,
+    'constraint', nargs=argparse.REMAINDER, action=ConstraintAction,
     help='Constraint to select a subset of installed packages')
 
 _arguments['module_type'] = Args(
diff --git a/lib/spack/spack/cmd/find.py b/lib/spack/spack/cmd/find.py
index ab0b29c30e3..ecd6ae28221 100644
--- a/lib/spack/spack/cmd/find.py
+++ b/lib/spack/spack/cmd/find.py
@@ -117,7 +117,8 @@ def find(parser, args):
 
     # Exit early if no package matches the constraint
     if not query_specs and args.constraint:
-        msg = "No package matches the query: {0}".format(args.constraint)
+        msg = "No package matches the query: {0}".format(
+            ' '.join(args.constraint))
         tty.msg(msg)
         return