Hello everyone! What about the latest idiom?
Alright guys! your Idiom today is " Be the spitting image of somebody", which means "to look extremely similar to someone".
Origin:
The germ of the idea behind the phrase has been traced back to 1400 by [Eric] Partridge, who cites the early example "He's...as like these as th hads't spit him." Similarly, in England and the southern U.S., the expression "he's the very spit of his father" is commonly heard.
This may mean "he's as like his father as if he had been spit out of his mouth," but could also be a corruption of "spirit and image." If the last is true, it would explain the use of "and image" in the expression since the middle of the [19th] century.
Spitting image would then be derived from "he's the very spirit and image of his father," that is, the child is identical to his parent in both spirit and looks. It's possible that both sources combined to give us our phrase for "exactly alike," which is also written "spit and image" "spitting image" "spitten image", and "spiting image"" From Robert Hendrickson, The Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins.