diff --git a/core/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/search/highlight/CustomQueryScorer.java b/core/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/search/highlight/CustomQueryScorer.java
index 9e86edef47d..8ad24b5cb19 100644
--- a/core/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/search/highlight/CustomQueryScorer.java
+++ b/core/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/search/highlight/CustomQueryScorer.java
@@ -82,7 +82,7 @@ public final class CustomQueryScorer extends QueryScorer {
             } else if (query instanceof FiltersFunctionScoreQuery) {
                 query = ((FiltersFunctionScoreQuery) query).getSubQuery();
                 extract(query, query.getBoost(), terms);
-            } else {
+            } else if (terms.isEmpty()) {
                 extractWeightedTerms(terms, query, query.getBoost());
             }
         }
diff --git a/core/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/search/highlight/HighlighterSearchIT.java b/core/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/search/highlight/HighlighterSearchIT.java
index 63378baa721..4063ec81a28 100644
--- a/core/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/search/highlight/HighlighterSearchIT.java
+++ b/core/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/search/highlight/HighlighterSearchIT.java
@@ -1557,7 +1557,7 @@ public class HighlighterSearchIT extends ESIntegTestCase {
                                 .fragmenter("simple"))).get();
 
         assertHighlight(response, 0, "tags", 0, equalTo("this is a really <em>long</em> <em>tag</em> i would like to highlight"));
-        assertHighlight(response, 0, "tags", 1, 2, equalTo("here is another one that is very <em>long</em> <em>tag</em> and has the <em>tag</em> token near the end"));
+        assertHighlight(response, 0, "tags", 1, 2, equalTo("here is another one that is very <em>long</em> <em>tag</em> and has the tag token near the end"));
 
         response = client().prepareSearch("test")
                 .setQuery(QueryBuilders.matchQuery("tags", "long tag").type(MatchQuery.Type.PHRASE))
@@ -1566,7 +1566,7 @@ public class HighlighterSearchIT extends ESIntegTestCase {
                                 .fragmenter("span"))).get();
 
         assertHighlight(response, 0, "tags", 0, equalTo("this is a really <em>long</em> <em>tag</em> i would like to highlight"));
-        assertHighlight(response, 0, "tags", 1, 2, equalTo("here is another one that is very <em>long</em> <em>tag</em> and has the <em>tag</em> token near the end"));
+        assertHighlight(response, 0, "tags", 1, 2, equalTo("here is another one that is very <em>long</em> <em>tag</em> and has the tag token near the end"));
 
         assertFailures(client().prepareSearch("test")
                         .setQuery(QueryBuilders.matchQuery("tags", "long tag").type(MatchQuery.Type.PHRASE))
@@ -2062,7 +2062,7 @@ public class HighlighterSearchIT extends ESIntegTestCase {
 
         searchResponse = client().search(searchRequest("test").source(source)).actionGet();
 
-        assertHighlight(searchResponse, 0, "field2", 0, 1, equalTo("The <xxx>quick</xxx> <xxx>brown</xxx> fox jumps over the lazy <xxx>quick</xxx> dog"));
+        assertHighlight(searchResponse, 0, "field2", 0, 1, equalTo("The <xxx>quick</xxx> <xxx>brown</xxx> fox jumps over the lazy quick dog"));
     }
 
     public void testPostingsHighlighterMultipleFields() throws Exception {
diff --git a/core/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/search/highlight/PlainHighlighterTests.java b/core/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/search/highlight/PlainHighlighterTests.java
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..5156209d6f1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/core/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/search/highlight/PlainHighlighterTests.java
@@ -0,0 +1,42 @@
+/*
+ * Licensed to Elasticsearch under one or more contributor
+ * license agreements. See the NOTICE file distributed with
+ * this work for additional information regarding copyright
+ * ownership. Elasticsearch licenses this file to you under
+ * the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may
+ * not use this file except in compliance with the License.
+ * You may obtain a copy of the License at
+ *
+ *    http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+ *
+ * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
+ * software distributed under the License is distributed on an
+ * "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
+ * KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the
+ * specific language governing permissions and limitations
+ * under the License.
+ */
+
+package org.elasticsearch.search.highlight;
+
+import org.apache.lucene.analysis.MockAnalyzer;
+import org.apache.lucene.index.Term;
+import org.apache.lucene.search.PhraseQuery;
+import org.apache.lucene.search.Query;
+import org.apache.lucene.search.highlight.QueryScorer;
+import org.apache.lucene.util.LuceneTestCase;
+
+public class PlainHighlighterTests extends LuceneTestCase {
+
+    public void testHighlightPhrase() throws Exception {
+        Query query = new PhraseQuery.Builder()
+                .add(new Term("field", "foo"))
+                .add(new Term("field", "bar"))
+                .build();
+        QueryScorer queryScorer = new CustomQueryScorer(query);
+        org.apache.lucene.search.highlight.Highlighter highlighter = new org.apache.lucene.search.highlight.Highlighter(queryScorer);
+        String[] frags = highlighter.getBestFragments(new MockAnalyzer(random()), "field", "bar foo bar foo", 10);
+        assertArrayEquals(new String[] {"bar <B>foo</B> <B>bar</B> foo"}, frags);
+    }
+
+}