Taking specific research questions that were asked at the time of compiling of the new Big Contemporary Slovene-Croatian and Croatian-Slovene Dictionary as a starting point, the author contrasts and analyses the relationship between form and meaning in the Slovene and Croatian lexicons. Considering the concept of full equivalence to be untenable, the author advocates the identification of necessary and desirable criteria for the analysis of real "lexical friends". Contrastive analysis shows that these are the basic relationships systematically found and replicated in the whole lexicon. Systematisation of the lexical relationship, which encompasses units such as real friends, different types of false friends and words that differ entirely in their form and meaning, indicates that there is a gradient relationship from least to most similar at all cognitive levels.
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