Definition of "tontine" [ton•tine]

• An investment plan in which participants buy shares in a common fund and receive an annuity that increases every time a participant dies, with the entire fund going to the final survivor or to those who survive after a specified time. (noun)
• Each member's share of a tontine. (noun)
• The subscribers to a tontine. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "*A tontine is a financial arrangement whereby a fixed group takes shares in an investment—in this case the coffeehouse—paying out pro rata as each dies or drops out; the last one standing gets the whole shebang."
• "The tontine is a scheme for raising money on a long-term basis by weighting rewards in favour of the longest lasting contributors."
• "They work, I am told, with a kind of tontine -- it is, in fact, a lottery."