Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A meal eaten outdoors, as on an excursion.
- n. Slang An easy task or a pleasant experience.
- n. A smoked section of pork foreleg and shoulder.
- v. To go on or participate in a picnic.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Formerly, an entertainment in which every partaker contributed his share to the general table; now, an entertainment or pleasure-party the members of which carry provisions with them on an excursion, as from a city to some place in the country: also used adjectively: as, a picnic party; picnic biscuits (a kind of small sweet biscuits).
- To attend a picnic party; take part in a picnic meal: as, we picnicked in the woods.
- n. Something undeniably good or easy; a ‘soft thing’; a snug berth; a treat; an easy job.
- n. A lively, difficult, or awkard experience.
Wiktionary
- n. A meal eaten outdoors or in another informal setting.
- n. An easy or pleasant task.
- v. To eat a picnic.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. Formerly, an entertainment at which each person contributed some dish to a common table; now, an excursion or pleasure party in which the members partake of a collation or repast (usually in the open air, and from food carried by themselves).
- v. To go on a picnic, or pleasure excursion; to eat in public fashion.
WordNet 3.0
- n. any informal meal eaten outside or on an excursion
- v. eat alfresco, in the open air
- n. any undertaking that is easy to do
- n. a day devoted to an outdoor social gathering
Etymologies
- French pique-nique (Wiktionary)
- French pique-nique, probably reduplication of piquer, to pick; see pique. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Back in Croton the word picnic conjured images of soggy PB&Js and Minute Maid fruit punch juice boxes.”
“Further, my picnic is as full as they come ... complete with potato salad and fire ants.”
“Clara looked puzzled for a moment—she had forgotten that that was what they called the picnic spot on the Guadalupe.”
“Clara looked puzzled for a moment — she had forgotten that that was what they called the picnic spot on the Guadalupe.”
“Clara looked puzzled for a moment -- she had forgotten that that was what they called the picnic spot on the Guadalupe.”
“Noa,' he said in a surly tone, smiling oddly on the winkers, but, recollecting his politeness, he added, 'Noa, thankee, misses, it's what they calls a picnic; we'll be takin' the road now. ”
“But the one thing that can be counted on more than rain on a church picnic is the resourcefulness of a church secretary.”
“The days when a picnic is just calling your name and you can linger in the freshly cut grass under the shade of a big tree.”
“For example, between the Jordanians and the Israelis, the bureaucrats that had to manage this resource came together literally at a picnic table at the boarder for what became known as the picnic table talks, to jointly manage [water] when their two countries were formally at war.”
“The wifi picnic is a fun gathering, dedicated to conviviality, citizenship and sharing.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘picnic’.
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®emovies
Movies or TV shows where the titles are also common words, generally one-word titles.
lost, alien, bug, elephant, siege, gladiator, flock, captivity, piano, roots, freaks, moonstruck and 269 more...
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Words that are also movies
Unabashedly stolen from a comment made by courier12.
vertigo, serendipity, casablanca, psycho, jaws, fantasia, stagecoach, network, rocky, giant, platoon, unforgiven and 285 more...
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Meat Parts: the Cuts, the Innards, an...
T-bone - Sounds good!
Shoulder - Alright.
Liver - Fine.
Sweetbread - Okay.
Gizzard - Pushing it.
Brains - What?!wing, wedge bone sirloin, veal, umbles, tri-tip, tripe, triangle steak, tournedo, top sirloin, top loin, tongue, thigh and 147 more...
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Happy Warm Joyful Words
fortuitous, auspicious, propitious, divine, sacred, cherish, grace, picnic, sunshine, felicity, harmony, serenity
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ACRONYMS you always wanted to know
asaygt, wombat, tptb, teotwawki, scnr, ymmv, wuwh, picnic, nimy, joott, wtmi, 14aa41 and 18 more...
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Formerly
Being a list of words with definitions containing the word "formerly."
formerly, armorer, link, plummet, brank, pall-mall, florin, quondam, erstwhile, imponderable, recant, ether and 32 more...
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Natural Bait
Things and situations that draw and inspire humans and/or animals, to interact with one another.
pot-luck dinner, water park, lek, spawning season, square dance, county fair, whale rescue, hurricane, flood, pet store, fish market, farmers' market and 87 more...
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Summer Words
Words that have to do with the Summer season.
mirage, beach, sun, warm, hot, humid, vacation, day, july, august, barbecue, baseball and 11 more...
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intueri's Words
inveigle, dolorous, archly, feckless, resplendent, concatenation, peripatetic, delightful, cookie, fey, ephemeral, effervescent and 347 more...
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colleen's words
yellow, green, pie, blue, fur, people, incense, book, brown, avuncular, mountain, fog and 1316 more...
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Words I like
This is a list of my favourite words (phrases) in english, as a second language. I love them mostly because of how they sound and their meaning.
ninja, cookie, skill, zip, plentiful, digg, debris, pancake, cucumber, fetch, pot, backpack and 461 more...
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Allographic Homophones
Words that can be pronounced identically but are spelled differently. I've started with unusual or extensive sets. In some of these sets, no one speaker would pronounce them all the same. I've trie...
air, are, ayr, ayre, e'er, ere, err, eyre, heir, apatite, appetite, picnic and 226 more...
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mandarine's Words
antepenultimate, metonymy, synecdoche, pop, kern, inherit, clique, scrumptious, macerate, murmur, kerning, veranda and 1068 more...
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merfee's Words
supple, dichotomy, relish, rhapsody, pneumonoultramicr..., embrace, ishmael, ebullient, recalcitrant, elegy, char, lugubrious and 522 more...
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The things they carried (List 2)
Listening to this as an audio book for the second time. Tim O'Brien uses simple words and phrases to great effect. Very few unfamilar and big words . The writing style reminds me of words from Joh...
The, Things, They, Carried, meant, fond, By necessity,, presented to him, far beyond, against the brick..., reaching, taut and 2940 more...
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Food
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spaghetti, yogurt, muesli, rarebit, wheat, cream, cheese, pumpkin, custard, couscous, oats, sausage and 237 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for picnic.
chained_bear Hey, that's like pebkac. *tickled that she remembered something for once* Aug 26, 2008
birdiemum Problem
In
Chair
Not
In
Computer Aug 26, 2008
john "'Picnic' began life as a 17th-century French word—it wasn't even close to being an American invention. A 1692 edition of Origines de la Langue Françoise de Ménage mentions 'piquenique' as being of recent origin marks the first appearance of the word in print. As for how the French came by this new term, it was likely invented by joining the common form of the verb 'piquer' (meaning "to pick" or "peck") and a nonsense rhyming syllable coined to fit the first half of this new palate-pleaser."
- Snopes.com Jan 25, 2008