Naming and Representing Picnics

Strangely, given its universality and popularity, the origins of picnicking are unclear, and the etymology and spelling of the word “picnic” are uncertain. The English word “picnic” is a loan word derived from piquenique—a French word of unknown origin that signifies a meal at which each diner pays his share for food to be eaten indoors (see Gilles Ménage’s Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue Françoise,1692). The Oxford English Dictionary records 1748 as the first use of “picnic” in English—by Lord Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope, who used it in the sense of an assembly or salon gathering. However, as indoor picnics faded, outdoor picnics became standard. According to Georgina Battiscombe, whose English Picnics (1949) is authoritative, by the beginning of the eighteenth century, outdoor gatherings became common events at which it was customary to eat a meal of some kind. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the French preferred “pique-nique,” and the English and Americans “pic-nic” or “picnic.” The modern American preference is picnic.