A carbon copy
Meaning
An exact duplicate of something, or a person who is strikingly similar in appearance or behavior to another.
Origin
Before the digital age, offices hummed with the mechanical clatter of typewriters and the faint scent of carbon paper, a revolutionary invention from the 19th century that found its true stride in the 20th. When a typist needed an exact duplicate of a letter or document, they would carefully sandwich a sheet of carbon paper between two plain sheets. Every strike of a key would press the carbon pigment from the middle sheet onto the paper below, creating a perfect, instantaneous twin. This ingenious, widely adopted technology gifted us the vivid phrase "a carbon copy," initially referring to the duplicate document itself, and quickly evolving into a universal metaphor for anything or anyone that is an exact replica or strikingly similar to another.
Examples
- Her younger sister is a carbon copy of their mother at the same age, right down to her mischievous smile.
- The new building design turned out to be a carbon copy of the one constructed downtown a decade ago, lacking any original elements.