Bonus

Bonus (Lat. good), a term usually applied to the share of surplus profits added from time to time to the value of policies of life insurance. (This surplus is partly due to the fact that the death-rates on which the ordinary life insurance tables are calculated are too high considering modern improvements in sanitation and medicine.) Also an extraordinary distribution of extra profits, or of additional shares, sometimes made by railway or other companies among their shareholders: or a present made by some shopkeepers to customers who buy a certain quantity in a certain time.