diff --git a/base/deprecated.jl b/base/deprecated.jl
index 10185fbe576e7..3893bbe42b8da 100644
--- a/base/deprecated.jl
+++ b/base/deprecated.jl
@@ -1000,4 +1000,7 @@ macro vectorize_2arg(S,f)
 end
 export @vectorize_1arg, @vectorize_2arg
 
+# Deprecate manually vectorized abs2 methods in favor of compact broadcast syntax
+@deprecate abs2(x::AbstractSparseVector) abs2.(x)
+
 # End deprecations scheduled for 0.6
diff --git a/base/sparse/sparsevector.jl b/base/sparse/sparsevector.jl
index ce610778e0a2d..6b5aaaa78ac1d 100644
--- a/base/sparse/sparsevector.jl
+++ b/base/sparse/sparsevector.jl
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-# This file is a part of Julia. License is MIT: http://julialang.org/license
+9# This file is a part of Julia. License is MIT: http://julialang.org/license
 
 ### Common definitions
 
@@ -912,7 +912,8 @@ hvcat{T}(rows::Tuple{Vararg{Int}}, xs::_TypedDenseConcatGroup{T}...) = Base.type
 ### Unary Map
 
 # zero-preserving functions (z->z, nz->nz)
-for op in [:abs, :abs2, :conj]
+broadcast(::typeof(abs2), x::AbstractSparseVector) = SparseVector(length(x), copy(nonzeroinds(x)), abs2.(nonzeros(x)))
+for op in [:abs, :conj]
     @eval begin
         $(op)(x::AbstractSparseVector) =
             SparseVector(length(x), copy(nonzeroinds(x)), $(op).(nonzeros(x)))
diff --git a/test/sparsedir/sparsevector.jl b/test/sparsedir/sparsevector.jl
index 0aaf4975a29fe..140a9aacbdb95 100644
--- a/test/sparsedir/sparsevector.jl
+++ b/test/sparsedir/sparsevector.jl
@@ -560,7 +560,7 @@ let x = spv_x1, x2 = x2 = spv_x2
 
     # abs and abs2
     @test exact_equal(abs(x), SparseVector(8, [2, 5, 6], abs.([1.25, -0.75, 3.5])))
-    @test exact_equal(abs2(x), SparseVector(8, [2, 5, 6], abs2.([1.25, -0.75, 3.5])))
+    @test exact_equal(abs2.(x), SparseVector(8, [2, 5, 6], abs2.([1.25, -0.75, 3.5])))
 
     # plus and minus
     xa = SparseVector(8, [1,2,5,6,7], [3.25,5.25,-0.75,-2.0,-6.0])
@@ -581,7 +581,7 @@ let x = spv_x1, x2 = x2 = spv_x2
 
     # multiplies
     xm = SparseVector(8, [2, 6], [5.0, -19.25])
-    @test exact_equal(x .* x, abs2(x))
+    @test exact_equal(x .* x, abs2.(x))
     @test exact_equal(x .* x2, xm)
     @test exact_equal(x2 .* x, xm)