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, mistress; also concordance, affinities"; 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
The Italian suit is danari, money, among the marks of the earliest cards in the British Museum's catalogue of 1876. 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."
Read next
- Next in Tarot cardsSix of PentaclesThe six of pentacles in the tarot's Minor Arcana: a merchant weighing money in scales and giving it to the needy. A. E. Waite read it as gifts, gratification and present prosperity.
- The same shape in Historical flagsBennington flagA flag of thirteen stripes, white at the top and bottom, with “76” under an arch of stars in the blue canton, long said to have flown at the Battle of Bennington in 1777. The Bennington Museum, which owns it, dates it to between 1812 and 1830, because it is made entirely of cotton.
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 circles, letters and numbers, squares and rectangles or stars.
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed September 30, 2026. How we research
Added . Last updated .