Queen of Swords
The queen of swords in the tarot's Minor Arcana: a stern queen enthroned, her sword raised upright. A. E. Waite read it as widowhood, sadness, absence and mourning.
Meaning
Waite describes the card: "Her right hand raises the weapon vertically and the hilt rests on an arm of her royal chair", and "her countenance is severe but chastened; it suggests familiarity with sorrow."
What does the Queen of Swords mean?
Waite's meanings are "widowhood, female sadness and embarrassment, absence, sterility, mourning, privation, separation"; reversed, "malice, bigotry, artifice, prudery, bale, deceit". His list of additional meanings adds "A widow", and reversed, "A bad woman, with ill-will towards the Querent".
In older decks
In Italian packs the suit is spade, swords, one of the four suit marks the British Museum's catalogue of 1876 gives for the earliest cards. Papus reads it as "A dark wicked woman", and her actions, gossip and calumnies.
Read next
- Next in Tarot cardsKing of SwordsThe king of swords in the tarot's Minor Arcana: a king seated in judgment, holding his sword unsheathed. A. E. Waite read it as judgment, power, command and authority.
- 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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