The Ultimate Tarot Glossary: Every Tarot Card Meaning, Upright & Reversed
Seventy-eight cards, one page, and a way in for every one of them.
No card by that name. Try a suit like “Cups” or a rank like “Queen”.
This is the tarot glossary I wished existed when I started reading. Every card in the Rider Waite Smith deck has its own full entry, written from years of reading for real people rather than copied out of a guidebook.
New to tarot? Begin with the Major Arcana. Already reading? Go straight to the card that keeps turning up for you.
The Major Arcana: 22 Cards That Map a Life
The Major Arcana runs from The Fool at zero to The World at twenty-one, and read in order it tells one story.
Every card is a turn a life takes: the first step, the first teacher, love, discipline, loss, the long night, the morning after. Pull a Major in a reading and the deck is telling you this moment matters more than usual.
The Fool walks through all of them. Every other card is somebody he meets.
22 CARDS · THE FOOL’S JOURNEY
Tap any card to read its meaning.
0 The Fool
I The Magician
II The High Priestess
III The Empress
IV The Emperor
V The Hierophant
VI The Lovers
VII The Chariot
VIII Strength
IX The Hermit
X Wheel of Fortune
XI Justice
XII The Hanged Man
XIII Death
XIV Temperance
XV The Devil
XVI The Tower
XVII The Star
XVIII The Moon
XIX The Sun
XX Judgement
XXI The WorldThe Suit of Swords: Air, Thought and Truth
Swords is the mind, and everything the mind does to you.
Clarity, decisions, conflict, communication, the stories you tell yourself at three in the morning. The suit runs from the single clean thought of the Ace to a King who has learned to wield it without cruelty.
I open the Minor Arcana with Swords because every action starts as a thought, and it takes air to light a fire.
14 CARDS · ELEMENT OF AIR
Tap any card to read its meaning.
The Suit of Wands: Fire, Drive and Ambition
Wands is the spark, plus everything it takes to keep one burning.
Energy, enterprise, creativity, the charge in your chest when an idea arrives with your name on it. The suit tracks what happens after inspiration: the plan, the work, the competition, the burnout, the finish line.
Nobody is one suit all the time. Wands is simply where most people recognise their best weeks.
14 CARDS · ELEMENT OF FIRE
Tap any card to read its meaning.
The Suit of Cups: Water, Love and Feeling
Cups is the heart, and every relationship it carries.
Love, friendship, family, grief, joy, intuition, the connection with somebody who sees you. Your relationship with your past, your triggers, and your own worth all live in this suit too.
The Ace overflows before anyone drinks from it. The Queen can hold anything you hand her.
14 CARDS · ELEMENT OF WATER
Tap any card to read its meaning.
The Suit of Pentacles: Earth, Money and the Body
Pentacles is everything you can hold, build, spend, or grow.
Money, work, home, health, the slow compounding of consistent effort. The suit rewards patience more than any other, moving from the first coin of the Ace to a King who built something that will outlast him.
Nature lives here too, along with the quiet magic inside it.
14 CARDS · ELEMENT OF EARTH
Tap any card to read its meaning.
Ace of Pentacles
Two of Pentacles3PentaclesThree of Pentacles4PentaclesFour of Pentacles5PentaclesFive of Pentacles6PentaclesSix of Pentacles7PentaclesSeven of Pentacles8PentaclesEight of Pentacles9PentaclesNine of Pentacles10PentaclesTen of PentaclesPagePentaclesPage of PentaclesKnightPentaclesKnight of PentaclesQueenPentaclesQueen of PentaclesKingPentaclesKing of PentaclesRead tarot without a guidebook.
What Every Card Entry Covers
- Symbols
- Every object on the card and why Pamela Colman Smith put it there
- Colours
- The palette pulled from the card, with what each hue does to you
- Upright
- Core meaning, keywords, and what it means for love, work, health and spirit
- Reversed
- Blocked, delayed, inverted, or overdone, with its own keywords
- Love
- Single, in a relationship, as feelings, as a person, and as advice
- Combinations
- Which cards amplify it and which cards diminish it
- Timing
- When, how fast, and the season or decan it sits in
- Astrology
- Planet, sign, element, and what that adds
- Yes or no
- The lean, plus why I rarely answer that way in a live reading
- My read
- What I actually say when the card lands in front of someone
How to Use This Tarot Glossary
A glossary is only useful if it changes how you read, so here is how I’d work through this one.
Read the suit, then the number
Every Minor Arcana card is two pieces of information laid on top of each other.
The suit tells you the territory: mind, drive, heart, or matter. The number tells you where in the story you are, with Aces as beginnings, Fives as the hard part, Tens as completion. Learn those two scales and you can read a card you’ve never seen before.
Look at the picture before the keywords
Pamela Colman Smith put the meaning into the images, which is why every entry here leads with symbols and colour.
Notice where the water is. Notice who is looking at whom. Keywords are a floor to stand on, never a ceiling.
Pull a clarifier when a card won’t talk
Some cards name a situation without naming the choice inside it.
One more card beside it usually does. Combinations matter more than single definitions, which is why every entry has a section on what amplifies the card and what diminishes it.
Keep a notebook
Patterns only show up on paper.
Write down every pull, the question, and what happened. Six months of that teaches more than any book, this page included.
Tarot Card Meanings: Quick Answers
How many cards are in a tarot deck?
Seventy-eight. Twenty-two Major Arcana and fifty-six Minor Arcana, the Minors split into four suits of fourteen cards each.
What’s the difference between the Major and Minor Arcana?
The Majors are the structural turns of a life, the moments that change you. The Minors are the daily texture: the moods, decisions, work and relationships that fill the time in between.
Do reversed tarot cards change the meaning?
Yes, though rarely into the opposite. A reversed card usually shows the same energy blocked, delayed, turned inward, or overdone. Every entry here covers both orientations.
Which deck are these meanings based on?
The Rider Waite Smith deck, illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith in 1909. Most modern decks descend from it, so the symbolism carries across.
What do the four suits represent?
Swords are air and thought. Wands are fire and drive. Cups are water and feeling. Pentacles are earth and the material world, which includes money, work, and the body.
Can tarot answer yes or no questions?
Every entry includes a yes or no lean, since people ask. In a live reading I steer away from flat answers, because your free will does the real work and no card gets to choose on your behalf.
Where should a beginner start?
The Fool, then the rest of the Major Arcana in order. After that, pick the suit that sounds most like your life right now and read it from Ace to King.
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