Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word tontine. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word tontine, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say tontine in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word tontine you have here. The definition of the word tontine will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition oftontine, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
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.