chip off the old block

Someone whose character or personality resembles that of their parent. Mike's automotive repair skills really rival those of his father. He's a real chip off the old block!

Fig. a person (usually a male) who behaves in the same way as his father or resembles his father. John looks like his father—a real chip off the old block. Bill Jones, Jr., is a chip off the old block. He's a banker just like his father.

A person who closely resembles a parent, as in Like her mother, Karen has very little patience-a chip off the old block. This term, with its analogy to a chip of stone or wood that closely resembles the larger block it was cut from, dates from ancient times (Theocritus, Idyls, c. 270 b.c.). In English it was already a proverb by the 17th century, then often put as chip of the old block.

A child whose appearance or character closely resembles that of one or the other parent.

An individual who closely resembles a parent in abilities, behavior, or appearance, most often a son resembling his father. The analogy is to wood—that is, a chip consists of the same wood as the block from which it came—and dates back to ancient Greek times. Theocritus called it a chip-of-the-old-flint (Idyls, ca. 270 b.c.). The wood analogy appeared in several writings of the seventeenth century, although usually as a chip of the old block (Robert Sanderson, William Rowley, John Milton, and others), and John Ray’s 1670 proverb collection had it, “Kit after kind. A chip of the old block.”