diff --git a/base/process.jl b/base/process.jl
index 6b8f50af637bf0..e664d7411de697 100644
--- a/base/process.jl
+++ b/base/process.jl
@@ -320,8 +320,6 @@ function eachline(cmd::AbstractCmd; keep::Bool=false)
     return EachLine(out, keep=keep, ondone=ondone)::EachLine
 end
 
-readline(cmd::AbstractCmd; keep::Bool=false) = first(eachline(cmd, keep=keep))
-
 """
     open(command, mode::AbstractString, stdio=devnull)
 
diff --git a/test/spawn.jl b/test/spawn.jl
index f9c49479d2f6d0..4e6eca4515c97c 100644
--- a/test/spawn.jl
+++ b/test/spawn.jl
@@ -670,14 +670,6 @@ end
 @test repr(Base.CmdRedirect(``, devnull, 1, true)) == "pipeline(``, stdout<Base.DevNull())"
 @test repr(Base.CmdRedirect(``, devnull, 11, true)) == "pipeline(``, 11<Base.DevNull())"
 
-@testset "readline" begin
-    @test readline(`$(printfcmd) '\n'`) == ""
-    @test readline(`$(printfcmd) 'foo\n'`) == "foo"
-    @test readline(`$(printfcmd) 'foo\nbar\n'`) == "foo"
-    @test readline(yescmd) == "y"
-    @test readline(pipeline(`$(printfcmd) 'foo\nbar\n'`, sortcmd)) == "bar"
-    @test_throws ArgumentError("collection must be non-empty") readline(`$(printfcmd) ''`)
-end
 
 # clean up busybox download
 if Sys.iswindows()