diff --git a/core/core.services.yml b/core/core.services.yml
index abee307..c6d9636 100644
--- a/core/core.services.yml
+++ b/core/core.services.yml
@@ -366,6 +366,10 @@ services:
     class: Drupal\Core\EventSubscriber\SpecialAttributesRouteSubscriber
     tags:
       - { name: event_subscriber }
+  route_http_method_subscriber:
+    class: Drupal\Core\EventSubscriber\RouteMethodSubscriber
+    tags:
+      - { name: event_subscriber }
   controller.page:
     class: Drupal\Core\Controller\HtmlPageController
     arguments: ['@http_kernel', '@controller_resolver', '@string_translation', '@title_resolver']
diff --git a/core/lib/Drupal/Core/EventSubscriber/RouteMethodSubscriber.php b/core/lib/Drupal/Core/EventSubscriber/RouteMethodSubscriber.php
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..19b5488
--- /dev/null
+++ b/core/lib/Drupal/Core/EventSubscriber/RouteMethodSubscriber.php
@@ -0,0 +1,48 @@
+<?php
+
+/**
+ * @file
+ * Contains \Drupal\Core\EventSubscriber\RouteMethodSubscriber.
+ */
+
+namespace Drupal\Core\EventSubscriber;
+
+use Drupal\Core\Routing\RouteBuildEvent;
+use Drupal\Core\Routing\RoutingEvents;
+use Symfony\Component\EventDispatcher\EventSubscriberInterface;
+
+/**
+ * Provides a default value for the HTTP method restriction on routes.
+ *
+ * Most routes will only deal with GET and POST requests, so we restrict them to
+ * those two if nothing else is specified. This is necessary to give other
+ * routes a chance during the route matching process when they are listening
+ * for example to DELETE requests on the same path. A typical use case are REST
+ * web service routes that use the full spectrum of HTTP methods.
+ */
+class RouteMethodSubscriber implements EventSubscriberInterface {
+
+  /**
+   * Sets a default value of GET|POST for the _method route property.
+   *
+   * @param \Drupal\Core\Routing\RouteBuildEvent $event
+   *   The event containing the build routes.
+   */
+  public function onRouteBuilding(RouteBuildEvent $event) {
+    foreach ($event->getRouteCollection() as $route) {
+      $methods = $route->getMethods();
+      if (empty($methods)) {
+        $route->setMethods(array('GET', 'POST'));
+      }
+    }
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * {@inheritdoc}
+   */
+  static function getSubscribedEvents() {
+    $events[RoutingEvents::ALTER][] = 'onRouteBuilding';
+    return $events;
+  }
+
+}
diff --git a/core/modules/rest/lib/Drupal/rest/Plugin/rest/resource/EntityResource.php b/core/modules/rest/lib/Drupal/rest/Plugin/rest/resource/EntityResource.php
index d0f9421..c8d9b64 100644
--- a/core/modules/rest/lib/Drupal/rest/Plugin/rest/resource/EntityResource.php
+++ b/core/modules/rest/lib/Drupal/rest/Plugin/rest/resource/EntityResource.php
@@ -185,17 +185,20 @@ public function patch($original_entity, EntityInterface $entity = NULL) {
   /**
    * Responds to entity DELETE requests.
    *
-   * @param mixed $id
-   *   The entity ID.
+   * @param mixed $entity
+   *   The entity ID or the already upcasted entity object.
    *
    * @return \Drupal\rest\ResourceResponse
    *   The HTTP response object.
    *
    * @throws \Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\Exception\HttpException
    */
-  public function delete($id) {
-    $definition = $this->getPluginDefinition();
-    $entity = entity_load($definition['entity_type'], $id);
+  public function delete($entity) {
+    $id = $entity;
+    if (is_scalar($entity)) {
+      $definition = $this->getPluginDefinition();
+      $entity = entity_load($definition['entity_type'], $id);
+    }
     if ($entity) {
       if (!$entity->access('delete')) {
         throw new AccessDeniedHttpException();
diff --git a/core/modules/rest/lib/Drupal/rest/Tests/DeleteTest.php b/core/modules/rest/lib/Drupal/rest/Tests/DeleteTest.php
index 8aa417b..62341f9 100644
--- a/core/modules/rest/lib/Drupal/rest/Tests/DeleteTest.php
+++ b/core/modules/rest/lib/Drupal/rest/Tests/DeleteTest.php
@@ -61,8 +61,13 @@ public function testDelete() {
       // Try to delete an entity that does not exist.
       $response = $this->httpRequest($this->entityBasePath($entity_type) . '/9999', 'DELETE');
       $this->assertResponse(404);
-      $decoded = drupal_json_decode($response);
-      $this->assertEqual($decoded['error'], 'Entity with ID 9999 not found', 'Response message is correct.');
+      if ($entity_type == 'entity_test') {
+        $decoded = drupal_json_decode($response);
+        $this->assertEqual($decoded['error'], 'Entity with ID 9999 not found', 'Response message is correct.');
+      }
+      else {
+        $this->assertText('The requested page "/node/9999" could not be found.');
+      }
 
       // Try to delete an entity without proper permissions.
       $this->drupalLogout();
diff --git a/core/modules/rest/lib/Drupal/rest/Tests/RESTTestBase.php b/core/modules/rest/lib/Drupal/rest/Tests/RESTTestBase.php
index 25c1425..bfc2736 100644
--- a/core/modules/rest/lib/Drupal/rest/Tests/RESTTestBase.php
+++ b/core/modules/rest/lib/Drupal/rest/Tests/RESTTestBase.php
@@ -248,16 +248,22 @@ protected function assertHeader($header, $value, $message = '', $group = 'Browse
   }
 
   /**
-   * Overrides WebTestBase::drupalLogin().
+   * {@inheritdoc}
+   *
+   * This method is overridden to deal with a cURL quirk: the usage of
+   * CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST cannot be unset on the cURL handle, so we need to
+   * override it every time it is omitted.
    */
-  protected function drupalLogin(AccountInterface $user) {
-    if (isset($this->curlHandle)) {
-      // cURL quirk: when setting CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST to anything other than
-      // POST in httpRequest() it has to be restored to POST here. Otherwise the
-      // POST request to login a user will not work.
-      curl_setopt($this->curlHandle, CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST, 'POST');
+  protected function curlExec($curl_options, $redirect = FALSE) {
+    if (!isset($curl_options[CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST])) {
+      if (!empty($curl_options[CURLOPT_HTTPGET])) {
+        $curl_options[CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST] = 'GET';
+      }
+      if (!empty($curl_options[CURLOPT_POST])) {
+        $curl_options[CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST] = 'POST';
+      }
     }
-    parent::drupalLogin($user);
+    return parent::curlExec($curl_options, $redirect);
   }
 
   /**
diff --git a/core/modules/rest/lib/Drupal/rest/Tests/ReadTest.php b/core/modules/rest/lib/Drupal/rest/Tests/ReadTest.php
index 51c2983..46f1f0d 100644
--- a/core/modules/rest/lib/Drupal/rest/Tests/ReadTest.php
+++ b/core/modules/rest/lib/Drupal/rest/Tests/ReadTest.php
@@ -65,7 +65,7 @@ public function testRead() {
         $this->assertEqual($response, 'An error occurred: No route found for the specified formats application/wrongformat.');
       }
       if ($entity_type == 'node') {
-        // Nodes are different because there is always as HTML route which will
+        // Nodes are different because there is always a HTML route which will
         // fire if no other format could be found.
         $this->assertResponse(200);
       }