Please review changes against upstream code using SCM,
see the Vcs-* tags in debian/control for its location.

--- mksh-50d.orig/eval.c
+++ mksh-50d/eval.c
@@ -664,7 +664,7 @@ expand(
 						f |= DOTEMP;
 						/* FALLTHROUGH */
 					default:
-						word = quote ? IFS_WORD : IFS_IWS;
+						word = quote || (!*x.str && (f & DOASNFIELD)) ? IFS_WORD : IFS_IWS;
 						/* Enable tilde expansion */
 						tilde_ok = 1;
 						f |= DOTILDE;
