noun an exact likeness of someone or something. The surviving form of 'spit and fetch' (image, picture), in which 'spit' is surely the substance of a body, or perhaps its corrupted 'spirit' and the noun with which it is combined represents an outer-appearance, ('fetch' is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as 'the apparition, double or wraith of a living person'); 'spit and' has varied in dialect use to spitten leading, ultimately, to the conventional synonym: 'spitting image' UK, 1895