Eight of Swords
The eight of swords in the tarot's Minor Arcana: a woman bound and blindfolded among eight swords. A. E. Waite read it as bad news, crisis and conflict.
Meaning
Waite's Key to the Tarot describes the design: "A woman, bound and hoodwinked, with the swords of the card about her. Yet it is rather a card of temporary durance than of irretrievable bondage."
What does the Eight of Swords mean?
Waite's meanings are "bad news, violent chagrin, crisis, censure, power in trammels, conflict, calumny; also sickness"; reversed, "disquiet, difficulty, opposition, accident, treachery; what is unforeseen; fatality". His list of additional meanings adds "for a woman, scandal spread in her respect", and reversed, "departure of a relative".
In older decks
The Italian suit is spade, swords, among the marks of the earliest cards in the British Museum's catalogue of 1876. Papus reads it as "The enemy only partially triumphs."
Read next
- Next in Tarot cardsNine of SwordsThe nine of swords in the tarot's Minor Arcana: a woman sitting up on her couch in lamentation, nine swords above her. A. E. Waite read it as despair, failure and deception.
- The same shape in Christian symbolsINRIINRI are the initials of the Latin for “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews”, the charge the Gospel of John says Pilate had fixed to Christ’s cross. Crucifixes in the Western churches show the four letters on a small board above his head.
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 crosses, 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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