Chip off the old block

This expression dates back to at least 1621 in the form of chip of the same block when it appeared in Sermons by Robert Sanderson, the Bishop of Lincoln, “Am I not a child of the same Adam, a chip of the same block, with him?” The block in question may have been of stone or wood. Not much later, John Milton was one of the first to be credited with the change to old block in Apology for Smectymnuus (1642), “How well dost thou now appear to be a chip of the old block.” The change to chip off the old block only happened much later during the 19th century.