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
Waite describes the card: "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: the earliest suit marks, the British Museum's catalogue of 1876 records, were coppe, danari, bastoni and spade, "cups, money, clubs, and swords". 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".
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