Ace of Cups
The ace of cups in the tarot's Minor Arcana: a hand from a cloud holding a cup from which four streams pour, and a dove descending with a Host. A. E. Waite read it as joy, content, nourishment and abundance.
Meaning
Waite describes the card: "The waters are beneath, and thereon are water-lilies; the hand issues from the cloud, holding in its palm the cup, from which four streams are pouring; a dove, bearing in its bill a cross-marked Host, descends to place the Wafer in the Cup…"
What does the Ace of Cups mean?
Waite's meanings are "house of the true heart, joy, content, abode, nourishment, abundance, fertility; Holy Table, felicity hereof"; reversed, "house of the false heart, mutation, instability, revolution". His list of additional meanings adds "inflexible will, unalterable law", and reversed, "unexpected change of position".
In older decks
In Italian packs the suit is coppe, cups: the earliest suit marks, the British Museum's catalogue of 1876 records, were coppe, danari, bastoni and spade, "cups, money, clubs, and swords". Papus reads it as "Commencement of a love affair."
Read next
- Next in Tarot cardsTwo of CupsThe two of cups in the tarot's Minor Arcana: a youth and a maiden pledging each other, the caduceus rising above their cups. A. E. Waite read it as love, passion, friendship and union.
- The same shape in Andean and Inca symbolsTumi (ceremonial knife)A ceremonial knife with a half-moon blade from the north coast of ancient Peru. The gold tumis of the Sicán (Lambayeque) culture carry a god on the handle, often identified as Naylamp, the dynasty’s mythical founder. The Tumi de Oro was declared a pre-Columbian symbol of Peru in 1981.
See also
The Fool, The Magician, The High Priestess, The Empress, The Emperor, The Hierophant.
Sources
- The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, by A. E. Waite, William Rider & Son, London, 1910 (the sacred-texts.com transcription, on the Internet Archive), The Lesser Arcana; Some Additional Meanings of the Lesser Arcana
- The Tarot of the Bohemians, by Papus, Chapman & Hall, London, 1896, translated by A. P. Morton (scan on the Internet Archive), The Divining Tarot, second lesson: the minor arcana
- A Descriptive Catalogue of Playing and Other Cards in the British Museum, by W. H. Willshire, Trustees of the British Museum, London, 1876 (scan on the Internet Archive), General history: the marks of the suits
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols formed from curves and waves, letters and numbers or squares and rectangles.
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed September 30, 2026. How we research
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