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Originally and chiefly American English, the colloquial phrase new kid on the block, and its variants, designate a newcomer, a recently arrived person.
—Synonym: new kid in town.
In the phrase new kid on the block, the noun block designates a group of buildings in a city bounded by intersecting streets on each side.
—Cf. also blockbuster.
These are, in chronological order, the earliest occurrences of the phrase new kid on the block and variants that I have found:
—Note: In early use (cf., below, quotations 1 & 2), the phrase was new kid in one’s block and was used literally in the sense of a child who has recently moved into the block where one lives:
1-: From The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia, USA) of Sunday 21st June 1903 [page 3]:
—The picture depicts a group of children assembled on a pavement in front of a house, watching a well-dressed, long-haired child who is looking at them through the window:
THE NEW KID IN OUR BLOCK
THE GANG SAYS:
[two illegible paragraphs]
But if you tried
To come outside
We would just
Make you dust,
You bet!THE NEW KID SAYS:
What a gang! I bet that I
Could lick the lot and not half try.
Think you’re smarties, I suppose,
Because I’m all hung full of clothes.Grinning at my curls? All right!
I’ll show you before to-night.
Wait, you fellows, wait.
You think you are great.When I get out
I’ll make you shout.
I will just
Make you dust,
You bet!
2-: From the column In Society, published in the Lawrence Daily Journal (Lawrence, Kansas, USA) of Wednesday 6th October 1909 [page 1, column 2]:
The Little Lad who hangs around the S. R.’s desk came down this morning looking especially pleased about something. He hung around for several moments and finally he said: “Say, we’re going to have the best time tonight you ever heard of. You see we’re hazing the new kid in our block and he’s the worst kid to get hazed you ever saw. Why we’ve been hazing him for a month and he still acts smart. We’ll fix him tonight. He’s asked Amy Smith to go to the Nickel with him and four of us are going to kidnap Amy and take her away. I just guess he’ll stand hazed when he sees all us fellows walking off with his girl.”
3-: From the Muscatine News-Tribune (Muscatine, Iowa, USA) of Tuesday 7th February 1911 [page 7, column 5]:
—Context [as explained page 7, column 5]: “Atwell, who joined the Muscatine club late in the season last year, and who showed excellent form from the very start, has been signed in again […] and will be on the staff the coming summer”:
DIAMOND DUST.
By Elanor Grin.Atwell looks pretty good to us.
He twirled mighty fine ball while he was here last year and besides the kid had a good disposition—at times. He showed no moicey [i.e., mercy?] however to the sluggers of the other teams and for that we also liked him.
[…]
Just make up your mind that third or fourth place will be good enough for Muscatine this year.
Don’t like it.
What do you expect from a team whipped together in a few months as against a team—a number of teams the members of which have been playing for years in the same organization.
We will just sit back (just watch us) and let them come up and think the new kid in the block is a sissy and then grab it from us, we will make them think we are the toughest little proposition that ever wore curls down his back.
We will maltreat them some and while they are getting a meal we will be getting a table de hote believe us.
4-: From the Muscatine News-Tribune (Muscatine, Iowa, USA) of Wednesday 1st March 1911 [page 7, column 5]:
Just because Muscatine is not walking with a Bowery accent and behaving like a candidate for the reform school, a dinkey little pill roller over at Kewanee has sized up the town as a sissy and a molly coddle.
[…]
They say that because Muscatine has signed a couple of Central has beens that the team is on the blink and will do well to sit around and not butt in unless called for.
[…]
Don’t size up the new kid in the block as a sissy because he hasn’t shot off his face and doesn’t swear and act tough and spit tobacco juice all over the kitchen floor.
That for you Kewanee—from us.
5-: With reference is to the USA’s late involvement in the First World War (28th July 1914 – 11th November 1918): From The Anaconda Standard (Anaconda, Montana, USA) of Friday 9th August 1918 [page 6, column 5]:
—The picture depicts the German Army as an injured little boy complaining to his mother, “Germania”, that he was beaten by the U.S. Army, represented as a smiling little boy:
MAMMA! MAMMA!
IT’S THAT NEW KID ON THE BLOCK
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