sb. (a.) [a. F. tontine, from name of Lorenzo Tonti, a Neapolitan banker, who initiated the scheme in France c. 1653.]
1. A financial scheme by which the subscribers to a loan or common fund receive each an annuity during his life, which increases as their number is diminished by death, till the last survivor enjoys the whole income; also applied to the share or right of each subscriber.
Introduced first in France as a method of raising government loans. Afterwards tontines were formed for building houses, hotels, baths, etc.
1765. Chron., in Ann. Reg., 71/2. The house of Commons came to a resolution of raising £300,000 … by way of tontine, or annuities upon lives, at 3 per cent. with benefit of survivorship.
1777. Sheridan, Sch. Scand., I. i. I hear he pays as many annuities as the Irish tontine.
1791. Gentl. Mag., Jan., 27/2. This gentlewoman had ventured 300 livres in each Tontine; and in the last year of her life she had for her annuity … about 3600l. a year.
1827. Hone, Every-day Bk., II. 1533. During a scarcity of money which prevailed in 1644, Lawrence Tonti came from Naples to Paris, and proposed that kind of life-rents, or annuities, which are named after him Tontines: though they were used in Italy long before his time.
1871. Daily News, 4 Jan. It is proposed to organize a tontine, to purchase the Alexandra Palace, with the park of about 100 acres, and utilise them for public recreation. The sum required is 650,000l., which it is intended to raise in shares of 20s. each.
fig. 1796. Burke, Regic. Peace, iv. Wks. IX. 67. The murderers of Robespierre, besides what they are entitled to by being engaged in the same tontine of Infamy,… have inherited all his murderous qualities.
2. A game of cards played on the tontine principle: see quots.
1798. Sporting Mag., XI. 24. Tontine may be played by twelve or fifteen persons; but the more the merrier. Ibid. Tontine … is played with an entire pack of fifty-two cards … every one is to take a stake. Ibid., 25/1. He who outlives all the rest, by having counters left, when theirs are gone, wins the party, and enjoys what the others have deposited.
¶ 3. Applied to a friendly society that shares out its unexpended funds at the end of the year. (Erroneous use.)
1871. 2nd Rep. Comm. Friendly Soc., II. (1872), 38/1. It is curious … that they [these sharing out clubs] call themselves tontines; I do not know why; of course it is a wrong name.
1898. Brabrook, Provid. Societies, 69. The Dividing Societies … exist in great numbers, under a variety of names, as Slate Clubs, Tontines, Birmingham Benefit Societies, &c.
B. adj. (or attrib. use of the sb.). Of, pertaining to, or of the nature of a tontine.
1824. Scott, St. Ronan’s, i. At length a tontine subscription was obtained to erect an inn.
1834. Ht. Martineau, Farrers, i. Some of the lot of lives with which her father and she were joined in a tontine annuity had failed.
1863. Kirk, Chas. Bold, II. IV. ii. 222. The destined survivor of a tontine partnership.
1876. Haydn’s Dict. Dates (ed. 15), 719. A Mr. Jennings was an original subscriber for a 100l. share in a tontine company; and being the last survivor…, his share produced him 3000l. per annum. He died aged 103 years, 19 June, 1798, worth 2,115,244l.
1891. Cent. Dict., Tontine policy, a policy of insurance, in which the holders agree to receive no dividend for a term of years called the tontine period. The money is allowed to accumulate till the end of the period, when it is divided among those who have maintained their insurance in force.
Hence Tontiner, a shareholder in a tontine.
1798. Times, 1 Dec., 3/2. How pleasant it must be to the Public, the Renters, Tontiners, and Frequenters of the Theatre in particular, to learn that the first BRICK of a new arch has been actually laid in Catherine-street, where an old one has disgraced the Commissioners, and endangered the limbs of the Public a long while.
1881. Times, June, 6/2. [Two survivors] claimed the whole fund, in their respective classes, as against the representatives of the deceased tontiners in the same class.
