Nine of Cups
The nine of cups in the tarot's Minor Arcana: a well-fed man seated before nine cups on an arched counter. A. E. Waite read it as contentment, victory and success.
Meaning
Waite describes the card: "A goodly personage has feasted to his heart's content, and abundant refreshment of wine is on the arched counter behind him, seeming to indicate that the future is also assured. The picture offers the material side only, but there are other aspects."
What does the Nine of Cups mean?
Waite's meanings are "concord, contentment, physical bien-étre; also victory, success, advantage; satisfaction for the Querent or person for whom the consultation is made"; reversed, "truth, loyalty, liberty; but the readings vary and include mistakes, imperfections, etc". His list of additional meanings adds "of good augury for military men", and reversed, "good business".
In older decks
Italian packs call the suit coppe, cups; the British Museum's catalogue of 1876 lists it among the suit marks of the earliest cards. Papus reads it as "Motherhood."
Read next
- Next in Tarot cardsTen of CupsThe ten of cups in the tarot's Minor Arcana: a couple and their children beneath a rainbow of ten cups, a home beyond. A. E. Waite read it as contentment and the perfection of love and friendship.
- The same shape in Andean and Inca symbolsTumi (ceremonial knife)A ceremonial knife with a half-moon blade from the north coast of ancient Peru. The gold tumis of the Sicán (Lambayeque) culture carry a god on the handle, often identified as Naylamp, the dynasty’s mythical founder. The Tumi de Oro was declared a pre-Columbian symbol of Peru in 1981.
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 curves and waves, 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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