Ten of Wands
The ten of wands in the tarot's Minor Arcana: a man bowed under the weight of ten staves. A. E. Waite read it as oppression, and fortune that has become a burden.
Meaning
Waite describes the card: "A man oppressed by the weight of the ten staves which he is carrying."
What does the Ten of Wands mean?
Waite's meanings are "A card of many significances, and some of the readings cannot be harmonized. I set aside that which connects it with honour and good faith. The chief meaning is oppression simply"; reversed, "contrarieties, difficulties, intrigues, and their analogies". His list of additional meanings adds "difficulties and contradictions, if near a good card".
In older decks
In Italian packs the suit is bastoni, clubs: the earliest suit marks, the British Museum's catalogue of 1876 records, were coppe, danari, bastoni and spade, "cups, money, clubs, and swords". Papus, who calls it the Ten of Sceptres, reads it as "uncertainty in the management of the enterprise".
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