noun an excursion or outing in which the participants carry food with them and share a meal in the open air.
the food eaten on such an excursion.
Also called picnic ham, picnic shoulder. a section of pork shoulder, usually boned, smoked, and weighing 4–6 pounds. Compare daisy(def 2) . Informal an enjoyable experience or time, easy task, etc.: Being laid up in a hospital is no picnic.
verb (used without object), pic·nicked, pic·nick·ing. to go on or take part in a picnic.
Origin of picnic 1740–50; < German Pic-nic (now Picknick ) < French pique-nique, rhyming compound < ?
Related forms pic·nick·er , noun Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019
Related Words for picnic barbecue ,
outing ,
excursion ,
cookout ,
clambake ,
walkover ,
pushover ,
lark ,
breeze ,
cinch ,
snap ,
setup Examples from the Web for picnic Contemporary Examples of picnic An 1882 travel guide calls it “a good place for oarsmen and campers to picnic ,” with a hotel called the White Cross.
The team behind Indochine and Acme is also opening Tijuana Picnic in the LES sometime this month.
Sometimes, when the sun is warm and the wind is relatively calm, we set a blanket down for a picnic .
“The idea is to get out in the open air, have a picnic ,” Wrigley said.
Here, in the back of the café, there was a picnic style table.
Historical Examples of picnic I brought her out here for a trolley ride and a picnic luncheon.
You tell the boys that if I find this street scrawled over any more, the picnic 's off.
Two dollars for a scholars' picnic in a place where no child is supposed to have money.
She never missed a picnic to Annandale, the Waterfalls, or Mashobra.
Would a Sunday-school picnic constitute a bribe worth mentioning?
British Dictionary definitions for picnic noun a trip or excursion to the country, seaside, etc, on which people bring food to be eaten in the open air
any informal meal eaten outside (as modifier ) a picnic lunch informal , mainly Australian a troublesome situation or experience
no picnic informal a hard or disagreeable task
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verb -nics , -nicking or -nicked Derived Forms picnicker , noun Word Origin for picnic C18: from French piquenique, of unknown origin
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
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Word Origin and History for picnic n. 1748 (in Chesterfield's "Letters"), but rare before c.1800 as an English institution; originally a fashionable pot-luck social affair, not necessarily out of doors; from French piquenique (1690s), perhaps a reduplication of piquer "to pick, peck," from Old French (see pike (n.2)), or the second element may be nique "worthless thing," from a Germanic source. Figurative sense of "something easy" is from 1886. Picnic table recorded from 1926, originally a folding table.
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v. "go on a picnic," 1842, from picnic (n.). Related: Picnicked ; picnicking . The -k- is inserted to preserve the "k" sound of -c- before a suffix beginning in -i- , -y- , or -e- (cf. traffic /trafficking , panic /panicky , shellac /shellacked ).
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
Idioms and Phrases with picnic The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
