Notes and Queries, No. 181, April 16, 1853, page 39 by Various Authors
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s Leroux says in his Dictionnaire Comique, "un divertissement fort à la mode à Paris."
I will not occupy space by quoting the article "at length" from Leroux, but the substance is this:--Persons of quality, of both sexes, who wished to enjoy themselves, and feast together, either in the open air or in the house of one of the number, imposed upon each one the task of bringing some particular article, or doing some particular duty in connexion with the feast. And to show how stringent was the expression pique-nique in imposing a specific task, Leroux quotes "considérant que chacun avait besoin de ses pièces, prononça un arrêt de pique-nique." (Rec. de Pièc. Com.)
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 thi