means A picnic is an outdoor meal where food is carried to a casual spot and eaten without the usual trappings of a table or chairs.

from From French 'pique-nique,' first recorded in the late 17th century, which originally meant a social gathering where each guest brought a share of the food or paid their own way — only later did it acquire its open-air sense. The 'pique' may relate to 'piquer' (to pick or peck at), with 'nique' as a playful rhyming flourish, the kind of nonsense doubling that languages love. The popular story that 'picnic' was a sinister American coinage tied to lynchings is false folk etymology — the word is European and predates that claim by well over a century.