diff --git a/src/manipulation.js b/src/manipulation.js
index 3a4f9a688..196794f83 100644
--- a/src/manipulation.js
+++ b/src/manipulation.js
@@ -160,10 +160,12 @@ jQuery.fn.extend({
 	// keepData is for internal use only--do not document
 	remove: function( selector, keepData ) {
 		var elem,
-			i = 0;
+			elems = selector ? jQuery.filter( selector, this ) : this,
+			i = elems.length;
+
+		while ( i-- ) {
+			elem = elems[ i ];
 
-		for ( ; (elem = this[i]) != null; i++ ) {
-			if ( !selector || jQuery.filter( selector, [ elem ] ).length > 0 ) {
 				if ( !keepData && elem.nodeType === 1 ) {
 					jQuery.cleanData( getAll( elem ) );
 				}
@@ -175,7 +177,6 @@ jQuery.fn.extend({
 					elem.parentNode.removeChild( elem );
 				}
 			}
-		}
 
 		return this;
 	},
diff --git a/test/unit/manipulation.js b/test/unit/manipulation.js
index f06e51098..c3c83b4f5 100644
--- a/test/unit/manipulation.js
+++ b/test/unit/manipulation.js
@@ -1741,7 +1741,8 @@ test( "clone()/html() don't expose jQuery/Sizzle expandos (#12858)", function()
 });
 
 var testRemove = function( method ) {
-	var first = jQuery("#ap").children().first();
+	var markup, div,
+		first = jQuery("#ap").children().first();
 
 	first.data("foo", "bar");
 
@@ -1759,6 +1760,18 @@ var testRemove = function( method ) {
 	jQuery("#ap").children()[ method ]("a, code");
 	equal( jQuery("#ap").children().length, 0, "Check multi-filtered remove" );
 
+	// Positional and relative selectors
+	markup = "<div><span>1</span><span>2</span><span>3</span><span>4</span></div>";
+	div = jQuery( markup );
+	div.children().remove("span:nth-child(2n)");
+	equal( div.text(), "13", "relative selector in " + method );
+	div = jQuery( markup );
+	div.children().remove("span:first");
+	equal( div.text(), "234", "positional selector in " + method );
+	div = jQuery( markup );
+	div.children().remove("span:last");
+	equal( div.text(), "123", "positional selector in " + method );
+
 	// using contents will get comments regular, text, and comment nodes
 	// Handle the case where no comment is in the document
 	ok( jQuery("#nonnodes").contents().length >= 2, "Check node,textnode,comment remove works" );
@@ -1771,7 +1784,7 @@ var testRemove = function( method ) {
 	}
 };
 
-test( "remove()", 8, function() {
+test( "remove()", 11, function() {
 	testRemove("remove");
 });
 
@@ -1790,7 +1803,7 @@ test( "remove() event cleaning ", 1, function() {
 	cleanUp.remove();
 });
 
-test( "detach()", 8, function() {
+test( "detach()", 11, function() {
 	testRemove("detach");
 });