Meaning
Said of people who are very similar in character, values or background, as if they were made from one shared material. It is almost always a comparison ('those two are cut from the same cloth'). Collins labels the expression mainly British, though it is widely understood and used elsewhere. Neutral in tone; the comparison can be complimentary or critical depending on which qualities are shared. Regional use: General English (clothing origin).
Origin
The image comes from tailoring: a suit's jacket and trousers were cut from a single bolt of cloth so that the pieces matched in colour, texture and quality, whereas garments cut from different cloth would visibly mismatch. The step from matching material to shared character is a natural one, and some accounts add that households once had the whole family's clothes made from one purchased length of cloth. Specialists note that the exact origin is unknown; the textile journal Tatter dates the established use of the phrase to the beginning of the twentieth century, and digitised nineteenth-century newspapers show earlier variants such as 'cut out of the same cloth', so the metaphor predates its modern fixed form. The derivation from tailoring practice is a plausible inference rather than a documented coinage.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- cut from a different cloth
- cut out of the same cloth
- from the same cloth
- not cut from the same cloth
Usage Examples
- The two founders are cut from the same cloth: both apprenticed in repair shops before they ever designed a product.
- You can tell the sisters were cut from the same cloth by how similarly they run their classrooms.
- Critics said the new mayor was cut from the same cloth as the old guard, despite his reformist promises.