borrowed from the German word Picknick, which was itself borrowed from French.

The earliest English citation is in 1748, from Lord Chesterfield (Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield) who associates a "pic-nic" with card-playing, drinking, and conversation; around 1800, Cornelia Knight spelled the word as "pique-nique" in describing her travels in France.

According to some dictionaries, the French word pique-nique is

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