diff --git a/winsup/cygwin/ChangeLog b/winsup/cygwin/ChangeLog
index 02e616606..3e89d7687 100644
--- a/winsup/cygwin/ChangeLog
+++ b/winsup/cygwin/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,8 @@
+2009-11-09  Corinna Vinschen  <corinna@vinschen.de>
+
+	* fhandler_console.cc (fhandler_console::read): Restrict generating
+	META key sequences to singlebyte input chars.
+
 2009-11-08  Corinna Vinschen  <corinna@vinschen.de>
 
 	* fhandler_disk_file.cc (fhandler_base::fstat_helper): Drop all "other"
diff --git a/winsup/cygwin/fhandler_console.cc b/winsup/cygwin/fhandler_console.cc
index 632ec1dcb..8bfccde0b 100644
--- a/winsup/cygwin/fhandler_console.cc
+++ b/winsup/cygwin/fhandler_console.cc
@@ -379,18 +379,23 @@ fhandler_console::read (void *pv, size_t& buflen)
 		  else
 		    toadd = tmp + 1;
 		}
-	      else if (dev_state->metabit)
+	      else if (nread == 1)
 		{
-		  tmp[1] |= 0x80;
-		  toadd = tmp + 1;
-		}
-	      else
-		{
-		  tmp[0] = '\033';
-		  tmp[1] = cyg_tolower (tmp[1]);
-		  toadd = tmp;
-		  nread++;
-		  dev_state->nModifiers &= ~4;
+		  /* META handling is restricted to singlebyte (ASCII)
+		     character values. */
+		  if (dev_state->metabit)
+		    {
+		      tmp[1] |= 0x80;
+		      toadd = tmp + 1;
+		    }
+		  else
+		    {
+		      tmp[0] = '\033';
+		      tmp[1] = cyg_tolower (tmp[1]);
+		      toadd = tmp;
+		      nread++;
+		      dev_state->nModifiers &= ~4;
+		    }
 		}
 	    }
 #undef ich