Why this word is great
TONTINE — [Noun] A financial scheme in which shares are redistributed among surviving investors upon each participant’s death. From French tontine, named after Lorenzo de Tonti, who introduced the scheme into France in around 1653, thus from Tonti (surname) + -ine (suffix forming nouns). Unlike an "annuity" (which guarantees steady, solitary payouts) or a "mutual fund" (which spreads risk without macabre incentives), the tontine is a gamble dressed as an investment—a slow-motion lottery where the prize is other people’s mortality. It is the rustle of actuarial tables in a silent parlor, the clink of champagne glasses at a reunion where each year’s absences thicken the air, the quiet thrill of outliving your peers and inheriting their stakes. A tontine turns time itself into currency, and every death into a dividend.