"cut from the same cloth"

Posted by Kirsten on December 13, 2005

In Reply to: "Cut from the same cloth" posted by Smokey Stover on December 03, 2005

: : "cut from the same cloth"
: : Meaning and/or origin please

: In a comparison to two individuals (usually men, as it happens), it means that they resemble each other closely in certain essential characteristics. They aren't wholly alike, but being "cut from the same cloth," thay have the same essential characteristics. Those characteristics can be either good or bad. It started when most adults either cut cloth or had the opportunity to see it being cut. Nowadays only a certain small fraction of women actually ask for cloth to be cut for them. SS

If you look back a few hundred years, families would buy a bolt of fabric to make there clothes from, so all in the family would be notably cut from the same cloth. In some communities they would maintain a certain fabric or tartan and that pattern would be identified with the specific family that used it again and again.