Ways to say people are alike

If we say that two people are ‘two sides of the same coin’, it means they’re different but they fit together perfectly.

On the English coins pictured below, for instance, there’s a ‘heads’ side, featuring a picture of the queen, and a ‘tails’ side, featuring a picture of a coat of arms including a lion.

Each side is different, but put the sides together and they make one coin.

It’s a similar idea to being ‘made for each other’ - it describes people who are so alike that it’s as if someone sat down and designed each person specifically for the other - and is usually used for people in a romantic relationship.

Other idioms can be used for any kind of close relationship.

‘Two peas in a pod’ indicates that two people are similar and metaphorically close.

“They’re like two peas in a pod. They’re always together.”

‘Cut from the same cloth’ indicates that people were ‘made the same’, they’re so similar it’s as though they came from one piece of fabric.

This idiom is generally negative and is often used to mean that two people are equally ‘bad’.

“Both in trouble again! They really are cut from the same cloth…”

For this reason, it is seldom used to describe your own relationship/s.

People are sometimes described as ‘birds of a feather’, an idiom which draws on a well-known nursery rhyme:

Birds of a feather flock together

And so do pigs and swine.

Rats and mice will have their choice,

And so will l have mine.

(Pigs and rodents are considered rather disgusting by some people.)

This saying can be used negatively to dismiss a pair or group of people who spend time together, who you don’t like.

“I’m not surprised those two get on so well...birds of a feather flock together.”

“Yes, they all have disgusting manners. Birds of a feather flock together!”

Like ‘cut from the same cloth’ you wouldn’t usually use it to describe your own relationship/s.

When a child is similar to their parent/s in a negative way, it’s sometimes said that ‘the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree’.

The child (metaphorically the apple) hasn’t travelled far from their origin, the metaphorical tree.

“I’m not surprised he ended up in prison, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree you know.”

‘A chip off the old block’ is similar.

A ‘chip’ is a small object which has broken off a larger one. In this idiom, it refers to a piece of timber which has broken off the original block of wood. It pivots on the fact that the substance is still essentially the same.

Unlike the previous phrase, it is used positively, often by one of the parents themselves.

“Just look at the way James handles a rugby ball, he’s a real chip off the old block.”