Ten of Swords
The 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.
Meaning
Waite describes the card: "A prostrate figure, pierced by all the swords belonging to the card."
What does the Ten of Swords mean?
Waite's meanings are "whatsoever is intimated by the design; also pain, affliction, tears, sadness, desolation. It is not especially a card of violent death"; reversed, "advantage, profit, success, favour, but none of these are permanent; also power and authority". His list of additional meanings adds "followed by Ace and King, imprisonment; for girl or wife, treason on the part of friends", and reversed, "victory and consequent fortune for a soldier in war".
In older decks
In Italian packs the suit is spade, swords: 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 "uncertainty in the enmity".
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