diff --git a/lib/path.js b/lib/path.js
index 658b5d6901df..c42294b2beb1 100644
--- a/lib/path.js
+++ b/lib/path.js
@@ -1275,6 +1275,21 @@ const posix = {
     // At this point the path should be resolved to a full absolute path, but
     // handle relative paths to be safe (might happen when process.cwd() fails)
 
+    // Already-normalized absolute paths skip normalizeString. cwd-failed
+    // relative results stay on that path so '' still resolves to '.'.
+    if (resolvedAbsolute &&
+        StringPrototypeIndexOf(resolvedPath, '.') === -1 &&
+        StringPrototypeIndexOf(resolvedPath, '//') === -1) {
+      // The concat above always appends one '/'.
+      if (resolvedPath.length > 1 &&
+          StringPrototypeCharCodeAt(resolvedPath, resolvedPath.length - 1) ===
+            CHAR_FORWARD_SLASH) {
+        resolvedPath = StringPrototypeSlice(resolvedPath, 0, -1);
+      }
+      return StringPrototypeCharCodeAt(resolvedPath, 0) ===
+        CHAR_FORWARD_SLASH ? resolvedPath : `/${resolvedPath}`;
+    }
+
     // Normalize the path
     resolvedPath = normalizeString(resolvedPath, !resolvedAbsolute, '/',
                                    isPosixPathSeparator);