Seven of Cups
The seven of cups in the tarot's Minor Arcana: strange cups of vision, filled with fantastic images. A. E. Waite read it as imagination and fancies with nothing lasting behind them.
Meaning
Waite describes the card: "Strange chalices of vision, but the images are more especially those of the fantastic spirit."
What does the Seven of Cups mean?
Waite's meanings are "fairy favours, images of reflection, sentiment, imagination, things seen in the glass of contemplation; some attainment in these degrees, but nothing permanent or substantial is suggested"; reversed, "desire, will, determination, project". His list of additional meanings adds "fair child; idea, design, resolve, movement", and reversed, "success, if accompanied by the Three of Cups".
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 "success assured to the lovers".
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