Where does the word picnic come from?
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first recorded use of “picnic” in English appears in 1748 in a letter from Lord Chesterfield to his son residing in Berlin, in the sense of a social gathering. ‘Picknicken’ in German means to hold a meeting. A subsequent mention occurs in a letter from Lady M. Coke to Lady Stafford in 1763. A 1738 translation of Lord Chesterfield’s letter into Swedish used “picnick” and the Swedish dictionary suggests it is of French or English origin. By the early 1800s “picnic” was used only in the sense of a social meal eaten outdoors.
