Three of Pentacles
The three of pentacles in the tarot's Minor Arcana: a sculptor at work in a monastery. A. E. Waite read it as skilled labour, trade, and renown.
Meaning
Waite describes the card: "A sculptor at his work in a monastery. Compare the design which illustrates the Eight of Pentacles. The apprentice or amateur therein has received his reward and is now at work in earnest."
What does the Three of Pentacles mean?
Waite's meanings are "métier, trade, skilled labour; usually, however, regarded as a card of nobility, aristocracy, renown, glory"; reversed, "mediocrity, in work and otherwise, puerility, pettiness, weakness". His list of additional meanings adds "if for a man, celebrity for his eldest son", and reversed, "depends on neighbouring cards".
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 "realization of this commencement of fortune; a small sum".
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