The variant form
like father, like daughter
also occurs.
Like MOTHER, like daughter
evolved separately, although both it and this proverb were fixed in this form in the seventeenth century. Cf. L.
qualis pater talis filius
, as is the father, so is the son.
c
1340
Psalter
(1884) 342
Ill sunnys folous ill fadirs.
1509
Ship of Fools
98
An olde prouerbe hath longe agone be sayde That oft the sone in maners lyke wyll be Vnto the Father.
1616
Adages
149
Like father like sonne.
1709
English Proverbs
30
Like Father, like Son …How many Sons inherit their Fathers Failings, as well as Estates?
1841
Ten Thousand a Year
II. xiii.
Two such bitter Tories .. for, like father, like son.
1936
South Riding
v.i.
Perhaps Lydia might do it once too often …Like father, like daughter.
1977
Time
22 Aug. 41
Like father, like son—usually perhaps, but not in the Hunt family.
1983
‘’
Appleby & Honeybath
xii.
And like son, like father, if one may so vary the old expression. Neither of them reading men.
children and parents
;
similarity and dissimilarity