Three of Swords
The three of swords in the tarot's Minor Arcana: three swords piercing a heart, with cloud and rain behind. A. E. Waite read it as removal, absence, delay and division.
Meaning
Waite describes the card: "Three swords piercing a heart; cloud and rain behind."
What does the Three of Swords mean?
Waite's meanings are "removal, absence, delay, division, rupture, dispersion, and all that the design signifies naturally, being too simple and obvious to call for specific enumeration"; reversed, "mental alienation, error, loss, distraction, disorder, confusion". His list of additional meanings adds "for a woman, the flight of her lover", and reversed, "A meeting with one whom the Querent has compromised; also a nun".
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 "realization of the enmity; hatred".
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