Nine of Swords
The nine of swords in the tarot's Minor Arcana: a woman sitting up on her couch in lamentation, nine swords above her. A. E. Waite read it as despair, failure and deception.
Meaning
Waite describes the card: "One seated on her couch in lamentation, with the swords over her. She is as one who knows no sorrow which is like unto hers. It is a card of utter desolation."
What does the Nine of Swords mean?
Waite's meanings are "death, failure, miscarriage, delay, deception, disappointment, despair"; reversed, "imprisonment, suspicion, doubt, reasonable fear, shame". His list of additional meanings adds "an ecclesiastic, a priest; generally, a card of bad omen", and reversed, "good ground for suspicion against a doubtful person".
In older decks
Italian packs call the suit spade, swords; the British Museum's catalogue of 1876 lists it among the suit marks of the earliest cards. Papus reads it as "Certain duration of the hatred."
Read next
- Next in Tarot cardsTen of SwordsThe ten of swords in the tarot's Minor Arcana: a figure lying face down, pierced by ten swords. A. E. Waite read it as pain, affliction and desolation.
- The same shape in Christian symbolsINRIINRI are the initials of the Latin for “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews”, the charge the Gospel of John says Pilate had fixed to Christ’s cross. Crucifixes in the Western churches show the four letters on a small board above his head.
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 crosses, 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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