Knight of Cups
The knight of cups in the tarot's Minor Arcana: a graceful rider in a winged helmet, riding quietly with a cup. A. E. Waite read it as arrival, approach, advances and invitation.
Meaning
Waite describes the card: "Graceful, but not warlike; riding quietly, wearing a winged helmet, referring to those higher graces of the imagination which sometimes characterize this card. He too is a dreamer, but the images of the side of sense haunt him in his vision."
What does the Knight of Cups mean?
Waite's meanings are "arrival, approach—sometimes that of a messenger; advances, proposition, demeanour, invitation, incitement"; reversed, "trickery, artifice, subtlety, swindling, duplicity, fraud". His list of additional meanings adds "A visit from a friend, who will bring unexpected money to the Querent", and reversed, "irregularity".
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 "a young fair man, a friend; the lover".
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