Five of Pentacles
The five of pentacles in the tarot's Minor Arcana: two beggars in a snowstorm passing a lighted window. A. E. Waite read it as material trouble and destitution.
Meaning
Waite describes the card: "Two mendicants in a snow-storm pass a lighted casement."
What does the Five of Pentacles mean?
Waite's meanings are "the card foretells material trouble above all, whether in the form illustrated—that is, destitution—or otherwise. For some cartomancists, it is a card of love and lovers-wife, husband, friend"; reversed, "disorder, chaos, ruin, discord, profligacy". His list of additional meanings adds "conquest of fortune by reason", and reversed, "troubles in love".
In older decks
In Italian packs the suit is danari, money: the earliest suit marks, the British Museum's catalogue of 1876 records, were coppe, danari, bastoni and spade, "cups, money, clubs, and swords". Waite noted that "in many old Tarot packs this suit stood for current coin, money, deniers". Papus reads it as "a success coming which will balance the loss".
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