Eight of Cups
The eight of cups in the tarot's Minor Arcana: a dejected man walking away from eight cups. A. E. Waite read it as the decline of a matter, or else joy and modesty.
Meaning
Waite describes the card: "A man of dejected aspect is deserting the cups of his felicity, enterprise, undertaking or previous concern."
What does the Eight of Cups mean?
Waite's meanings are "the card speaks for itself on the surface, but other readings are entirely antithetical—giving joy, mildness, timidity, honour, modesty. In practice"; reversed, "great joy, happiness, feasting". His list of additional meanings adds "marriage with a fair woman", and reversed, "perfect satisfaction".
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 "partial failure of love".
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
Last reviewed September 28, 2026 by Rory Hansen. How we research