diff --git a/base/array.jl b/base/array.jl
index 213698c754bb33..93335153954f66 100644
--- a/base/array.jl
+++ b/base/array.jl
@@ -1930,6 +1930,9 @@ function hcat(V::Vector{T}...) where T
     end
     return [ V[j][i]::T for i=1:length(V[1]), j=1:length(V) ]
 end
+hcat(A::Union{Number,Vector,Matrix}...) = cat(A...; dims=Val(2)) # more special than LinAlg/special.jl
+hcat(A::VecOrMat{T}...) where {T} = typed_hcat(T, A...) # more special than LinAlg/special.jl
+hcat(A::Vector...) = cat(A...; dims=Val(2)) # more special than SparseArrays's vcat
 
 function vcat(arrays::Vector{T}...) where T
     n = 0
@@ -1946,6 +1949,13 @@ function vcat(arrays::Vector{T}...) where T
     end
     return arr
 end
+vcat(A::Vector...) = cat(A...; dims=Val(1)) # more special than SparseArrays's vcat
+vcat(A::Union{Number,Vector,Matrix}...) = cat(A...; dims=Val(1)) # more special than LinAlg/special.jl
+vcat(A::VecOrMat{T}...) where {T} = typed_vcat(T, A...) # more special than LinAlg/special.jl
+
+# disambiguation with LinAlg/special.jl
+hvcat(rows::Tuple{Vararg{Int}}, xs::Union{Number,Vector,Matrix}...) = typed_hvcat(promote_eltypeof(xs...), rows, xs...)
+hvcat(rows::Tuple{Vararg{Int}}, xs::VecOrMat{T}...) where {T} = typed_hvcat(T, rows, xs...)
 
 _cat(n::Integer, x::Integer...) = reshape([x...], (ntuple(Returns(1), n-1)..., length(x)))
 
diff --git a/stdlib/LinearAlgebra/src/special.jl b/stdlib/LinearAlgebra/src/special.jl
index 19b1057f9d6b84..06227c782002a9 100644
--- a/stdlib/LinearAlgebra/src/special.jl
+++ b/stdlib/LinearAlgebra/src/special.jl
@@ -335,9 +335,7 @@ const _TypedDenseConcatGroup{T} = Union{Vector{T}, Adjoint{T,Vector{T}}, Transpo
 promote_to_array_type(::Tuple{Vararg{Union{_DenseConcatGroup,UniformScaling}}}) = Matrix
 
 Base._cat(dims, xs::_DenseConcatGroup...) = Base._cat_t(dims, promote_eltype(xs...), xs...)
-vcat(A::Vector...) = Base.typed_vcat(promote_eltype(A...), A...)
 vcat(A::_DenseConcatGroup...) = Base.typed_vcat(promote_eltype(A...), A...)
-hcat(A::Vector...) = Base.typed_hcat(promote_eltype(A...), A...)
 hcat(A::_DenseConcatGroup...) = Base.typed_hcat(promote_eltype(A...), A...)
 hvcat(rows::Tuple{Vararg{Int}}, xs::_DenseConcatGroup...) = Base.typed_hvcat(promote_eltype(xs...), rows, xs...)
 # For performance, specially handle the case where the matrices/vectors have homogeneous eltype