picnic: [18] Picnic was borrowed from French piquenique, a word which seems to have originated around the end of the 17th century. It is not clear where it came from, but one theory is that it was based on the verb piquer ‘pick, peck’ (source of English pick), with the rhyming nique perhaps added in half reminiscence of the obsolete nique ‘trifle’. Originally the word denoted a sort of party to which everyone brought along some food; the notion of an ‘outdoor meal’ did not emerge until the 19th century.
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.
picnic (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- (compare traffic/trafficking, panic/panicky, shellac/shellacked).
雙語例句
1. I took the kids for a picnic in the park after school.
放學后我帶孩子們去公園野餐。
來自柯林斯例句
2. They were tidying up the remains of their picnic.
他們正在收拾野餐后剩下的東西。
來自柯林斯例句
3. We punted up towards Grantchester and had a picnic in a meadow.
我們乘坐平底長船溯河而上到格蘭切斯特，在草地上舉行野餐。
來自柯林斯例句
4. Primrose was given an apple, left over from our picnic lunch.