tontine

English

Etymology

From French tontine, named after Lorenzo de Tonti, who introduced the scheme into France in around 1653. Can be decomposed as Tonti +‎ -ine.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /tɒnˈtiːn/, /ˈtɒnˌtiːn/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• IPA^(key): /ˈtɒntaɪn/

Noun

tontine (plural tontines)

1. (finance, insurance) A form of investment in which, on the death of an investor, his share is divided amongst the other investors.
   • 1889, Robert Louis Stevenson, Lloyd Osbourne, chapter 1, in The Wrong Box‎^[1]:

     When Joseph Finsbury and his brother Masterman were little lads in white-frilled trousers, their father—a well-to-do merchant in Cheapside—caused them to join a small but rich tontine of seven-and-thirty lives.

   • 1971, Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, Folio Society, published 2012, page 634:

     There were many speculative schemes which gambled on the expectation of an individual's life, as in the tontine system, whereby all the group's contributions went to the last survivor.

   • 2000, JG Ballard, Super-Cannes, Fourth Estate, published 2011, page 237:

     They were pleasantly high, but in an almost self-conscious way, as if they were members of a tontine blessed by the unexpected death of two or three of its members.

Derived terms

• tontiner
• tontineer
• tontinier

Translations

Translations

• Catalan: tontina f
• French: tontine (fr) f
• Spanish: tontina f

See also

• dead pool (a misnomer for tontine)

Anagrams

• nonetti

French

Etymology

From Tonti +‎ -ine From Lorenzo Tonti, Napoleonic banker, who proposed this scheme to Jules Mazarin in 1653.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /tɔ̃.tin/

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

tontine f (plural tontines)

1. tontine

Derived terms

• tontiner
• tontinier

Descendants

• → English: tontine

Further reading

• “tontine”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.