(meantone), or else divided up and distributed amongst them. The two examples of usage given above do not seem to show any sign that the expression "temperament ordinaire" (in its 17th-18th-century French usages) was anything more than a descriptive or denotative phrase, denoting whatever was to be referred to as "the usual temperament": and the examples also make clear that other similar indicative words might equally be used instead, e.g. "the common rule", or "the one that everyone uses". Some of the modern literature might seem to apply "temperament ordinaire" as if it is (or might have been, in the 17th or 18th century) a kind of proper name or conventional label of some particular tuning arrangement(s). Perhaps it is an open question whether this was ever so. The status that the phrase actually had at that time is relevant in turn to the substantive question of what actual tuning (or range of tunings) the phrase was then used to refer to. The examples above show, at least, that the temperament so referred to was not uniquely identified. In summary, it seems that once the 18th century had got well under way, the expression 'temperament ordinaire' could refer in the French literature to a circulating irregular keyboard temperament with some slightly widened fifths as well as some narrowed ones: and that in the late 17th century it could refer to what is now called quarter-comma mean-tone temperament. It seems not impossible that both usages might have been at some time concurrent. References External links Text (French) of reference Huygens (1691) Text (French) of section T from the Encyclopédie, including reference (Rousseau, 1751) Discussion and links to sources of French Baroque irregular keyboard temperaments Rosetta Revisited: Bach's Very Ordinary Temperament Dominic Eckersley. Musical temperaments