Synonym pairs like Caxton'scherité pat is luve,Georgiantatbiri da gamorĉeva‘counsel (Arabic) and advice (Georgian)’ andbed‐ivbali‘fate (Georgian)‐fate (Arabic)’ are found both in the bilingual speech of children and adults and in the monolingual usage of many cultures. Starting their life as the metalinguistic device of translation and nativization in bilingual contact, they soon can be identified with independently motivated forms of reinforcement, e. g. in medieval Georgian poetry. This functional reinterpretation leads to the dominance of other language functions in the Jakobsonian sense. Formally, the transition from a metalinguistic to a predominantly referential function via other functions is accompanied by a preference for neutral expressions (likecounsel and advice),and the last stage is reached when synonym pairs are lexicalized as compounds