Etymology Journal ยท S
Spitting image
Meaning
- A person who looks exactly like another person, usually a parent or relative. It highlights a striking family resemblance.
Affectionate, observational
Used in a sentence
- That boy is the spitting image of his father when he was young.
- You are the spitting image of your grandmother in that photograph.
- She is the spitting image of her mother, especially when she smiles.
The backstory
This is likely a corruption of spit and image, meaning that the child is the very spit of the parent as if they had been spat out of them. It is a classic example of folk evolution.
Heard in
Nationwide
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