Thus, I think Leroux and also Cotgrave show that the word pique-nique involves the idea of a task, or particular office, undertaken by each individual for the general benefit.
Let us now go to Italian, and look at the word nicchia. Both from Alberti and from Baretti we find it to bear the meaning of "a charge, a duty, or an employment;" and if before this word we place the adjective piccola, we have piccola nicchia, "a small task, or trifling service to be performed." Now I think no one can fail to see the identity of the meanings of the expressions piccola nicchia and pique-nique; but it remains to show how the words themselves may be identical. Those who have been in the habit of reading much of the older Italian authors (subsequent to Boccacio) will bear me out in my statement of the frequency of contraction of words in familiar use: the plays, particularly, show it, from the dialogues in Machiavelli or Goldoni to the libretto of a modern opera; so much as to render it very probable that piccola nicchia might stand as picc' nicc', just as we ourselves have been in the habit of degrading scandalum magnatum into scan. mag. It only remains now to carry this picc' nicc' into France, and, according to what is usual in Gallicising Italian words, to change the c or ch into que, to have what I started with, viz. the divertissement concerning which Leroux enlarges, and in which, I am afraid, it may be said I have followed his example.
However, I consider the Decameron of Boccacio as a probable period where the temporary queen of the day would impose the arrêt of pique-nique upon her subjects; and when I look over the engravings of the manners and customs of the Italians of the Middle Ages, all indicating the frequency of the al fresco banquets, and find that subsequently Watteau and Lancret revel in similar amusements in France, where the personages of the fête manifestly wear Italian-fashioned garments; and when we are taught that such parties of pleasure were called pique-niques, I think it is fair to infer that the expression is a Gallicised one from an Italian phrase of the same signification.
I do not know if it will be conceded that I have proved my case positively, but I might go so far negatively as to show that in no other European language can I find any word or words which, having a similar sound, will bear an analysis of adaptation; and though there is every probability that the custom of pic-nicing obtained in preference in the sunny south, there are few, I think, that would rush for an explanation into the Eastern languages, on the plea that the Crusaders, being in the habit of al fresco banquetting, might have brought home the expression pic-nic.
John Anthony, M.D.
Washwood, Birmingham.
This word would seem to be derived from the French. Wailly, in his Nouveau Vocabulaire, describes it as "repas où chacun paye son écot," a feast towards which each guest contributes a portion of the expense. Its etymology is thus explained by Girault-Duvivier, in his Grammaire des Grammaires:
"Pique-nique, plur. des pique-nique: des repas où ceux qui piquent, qui mangent, font signe de la tête qu'ils paieront.
"Les Allemands, dit M. Lemare, ont aussi leur picknick, qui a le même sens que le nôtre. Picken signifie piquer, becqueter, et nicken signifie faire signe de la tête. Pique-nique est donc, comme passe-passe, un composé de deux verbes; Il est dans l'analogie de cette phrase, 'Qui touche, mouille.'"
Henry H. Breen.