I know what static means in the context of declaring global non-template functions (see e.g. What is a "static" function?), which is useful if you write a helper function in a header that is included from several different locations and want to avoid "duplicate definition" errors. So my question is: What does static mean in the context of declaring global template functions? Please note that I'm specifically asking about global, non-member template functions that do not belong to a class. In other words, what is the difference between the following two: template <typename T> void foo(T t) { /* implementation of foo here */ } template <typename T> static void bar(T t) { /* implementation of bar here */ }