diff --git a/tests/functional/check-refs.nix b/tests/functional/check-refs.nix
index 471d95753..9512c73c1 100644
--- a/tests/functional/check-refs.nix
+++ b/tests/functional/check-refs.nix
@@ -79,4 +79,10 @@ rec {
     buildCommand = ''echo ${dep} > "''${outputs[out]}"'';
   };
 
+  test12 = makeTest 12 {
+    builder = builtins.toFile "builder.sh" "mkdir $out $lib";
+    outputs = ["out" "lib"];
+    disallowedReferences = ["dev"];
+  };
+
 }
diff --git a/tests/functional/check-refs.sh b/tests/functional/check-refs.sh
index 5c3ac915e..8eb93b48d 100755
--- a/tests/functional/check-refs.sh
+++ b/tests/functional/check-refs.sh
@@ -60,3 +60,7 @@ if ! isTestOnNixOS; then
     fi
 
 fi
+
+# test12 should fail (syntactically invalid).
+expectStderr 1 nix-build -vvv -o "$RESULT" check-refs.nix -A test12 >"$TEST_ROOT/test12.stderr"
+grepQuiet -F "output check for 'lib' contains an illegal reference specifier 'dev', expected store path or output name (one of [lib, out])" < "$TEST_ROOT/test12.stderr"