Five of Wands
The five of wands in the tarot's Minor Arcana: a group of youths brandishing staves as if in sport or strife. A. E. Waite read it as imitation, as in a sham fight, and the struggle for riches.
Meaning
Waite describes the card: "A posse of youths, who are brandishing staves, as if in sport or strife. It is mimic warfare…"
What does the Five of Wands mean?
Waite's meanings are "imitation, as, for example, sham fight, but also the strenuous competition and struggle of the search after riches and fortune. In this sense it connects with the battle of life. Hence some attributions say that it is a card of gold, gain, opulence."; reversed, "litigation, disputes, trickery, contradiction". His list of additional meanings adds "success in financial speculation", and reversed, "quarrels may be turned to advantage".
In older decks
The Italian suit is bastoni, clubs, among the marks of the earliest cards in the British Museum's catalogue of 1876. Papus, who calls it the Five of Sceptres, reads it as "Opposition to the obstacles. Victory after surmounting them."
Read next
- Next in Tarot cardsSix of WandsThe six of wands in the tarot's Minor Arcana: a horseman crowned with laurel riding among footmen with staves. A. E. Waite read it as victory, great news, and expectation crowned.
- The same shape in Chinese radicalsMù 目The character for ‘eye’, and radical 109 of the 214 Kangxi radicals, under which characters for looking and seeing are filed.
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 letters and numbers, lines 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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