Ten of Pentacles
The ten of pentacles in the tarot's Minor Arcana: a family beneath an archway, an old man seated in front with two dogs. A. E. Waite read it as gain, riches and family matters.
Meaning
In Waite's words: "A man and woman beneath an archway which gives entrance to a house and domain. They are accompanied by a child, who looks curiously at two dogs accosting an ancient personage seated in the foreground. The child's hand is on one of them."
What does the Ten of Pentacles mean?
Waite's meanings are "gain, riches; family matters, archives, extraction, the abode of a family"; reversed, "chance, fatality, loss, robbery, games of hazard; sometimes gift, dowry, pension". His list of additional meanings adds "represents house or dwelling, and derives its value from other cards", and reversed, "an occasion which may be fortunate or otherwise".
In older decks
In Italian packs the suit is danari, money, one of the four suit marks the British Museum's catalogue of 1876 gives for the earliest cards. Waite noted that "in many old Tarot packs this suit stood for current coin, money, deniers". Papus reads it as "Great success and great reverses."
Read next
- Next in Tarot cardsPage of PentaclesThe page of pentacles in the tarot's Minor Arcana: a youth gazing at a pentacle held up in his hands. A. E. Waite read it as study, scholarship and reflection, or news.
- The same shape in Historical flagsBennington flagA flag of thirteen stripes, white at the top and bottom, with “76” under an arch of stars in the blue canton, long said to have flown at the Battle of Bennington in 1777. The Bennington Museum, which owns it, dates it to between 1812 and 1830, because it is made entirely of cotton.
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 circles, letters and numbers, squares and rectangles or stars.
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed September 30, 2026. How we research
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