What Is the Origin of the Word “Picnic”

Food in a basket, sun, cider and butterflies… What’s not to love about a picnic? The name, perhaps?

Fret not. The name is quite innocent and derives from French. So you can safely enjoy your sandwich on your next picnic.

What Is a Picnic?

A picnic is a packed meal you eat outdoors.

You may have seen someone write “we went picnicking at the park” in an Instagram post showing a beautiful image of a fit and smiling family sitting on a blanket underneath a beautiful tree.

And that is the whole point of a picnic. Ideally, you sit on the ground on a rug or blanket, enjoy your basket full of delicious food, typically cold like sandwiches, washed down with beer, wine, juice or water.

History and Origin

There is a common misconception about the origins of the word picnic.

And that is that it came from the word pick-a-nig. (Nig being short for the N word.) A black person was said to have been picked out from a crowd and killed while wealthy white families ate from lunch boxes and enjoy watching the barbaric act.

Thankfully, this is entirely false.

The word picnic has a very innocent explanation. It originates from the 17th century French word “pique-nique” with a similar meaning to the word we use today, picnic.

The French word “piquer” means to pick which is commonly done in a picnic. You pick your food from a basket. The word “nique” was probaly nothing more than just a silly rhyming word which means “thing of little importance.”

The first appearance in French literature of the word pique-nique is from 1649 in “Les Charmans effects des barricades ou l’amitié durable de la compagnie des frères bachiques de Pique-Nique, en vers burlesques” However the term picnic has not been used in the English language until the early 1800’s.

Popularity and Evolution

Picnics as we know them today became popular in the 18th century among the wealthier classes in Europe, however eating outdoors has been a practice as old as time.