diff --git a/base/sort.jl b/base/sort.jl
index 62ffe0c9e8ee1..1535955893756 100644
--- a/base/sort.jl
+++ b/base/sort.jl
@@ -413,6 +413,13 @@ end
 sort(v::AbstractVector; kws...) = sort!(copymutable(v); kws...)
 
 
+## other iterables and fallback ##
+
+sort(s::String; kws...) = String(sort(collect(s); kws...))
+sort(n::Number) = throw(MethodError(sort, n))
+sort(itr; kws...) = sort(collect(itr); kws...)
+
+
 ## selectperm: the permutation to sort the first k elements of an array ##
 
 selectperm(v::AbstractVector, k::Union{Integer,OrdinalRange}; kwargs...) =
diff --git a/test/sorting.jl b/test/sorting.jl
index 2ec0d37095512..5f29b90c9338d 100644
--- a/test/sorting.jl
+++ b/test/sorting.jl
@@ -348,3 +348,11 @@ end
 
 # issue #12833 - type stability of sort
 @test Base.return_types(sort, (Vector{Int},)) == [Vector{Int}]
+
+# general iterables
+@test sort(take([3,2,1], 2)) == [2,3]
+@test sort(drop([1,3,2], 1)) == [2,3]
+@test sort("Julia") == "Jailu"
+@test sort("Julia", by=isupper) == "uliaJ"
+@test sort(graphemes("bca")) == collect(graphemes("abc"))
+@test_throws MethodError sort(1)