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Tarot Card Definitions

Tarot card definitions, although often a source of confusion, can be quite fascinating for anyone interested in learning what the future may hold.

What are Tarot Cards?

A tarot deck is a special deck of cards that contains 21 trump cards, the Fool, and an extra face card per suit, in addition to the usual suit cards found in an ordinary deck of playing cards. In Europe, tarot cards have been traditionally used to play a variety of trick taking card games. In the United States and other English-speaking countries, however, tarot cards are most often used for fortune telling and divinatory purposes. Tarot readings are considered by many to be closely linked to practices such as astrology, the Kabalah, Pythagorean numerology, the I Ching, and Aura-Soma.

The images on a deck of tarot cards are very detailed. There are several deck styles that exist primarily as forms of artwork as well as many types of regional specialty tarot card decks. In English-speaking countries, for example, the most popular tarot deck is called the Rider-Waite deck or the Rider deck. The images on these cards were first drawn by artist Pamela Colman-Smith under the supervision of Christian mystic and occultist Arthur Edward Waite and published by the Rider Company in 1910. Tarot decks such as the Universal Waite, Golden Tarot, Aquarian Tarot, Nigel Jackson Tarot, and Gilded Tarot are said to have directly evolved from the Rider-Waite deck.

Learning Tarot Card Definitions

The trump cards along with the Fool card are known as the 22 major arcana cards. The pip and four face cards are called the 56 minor arcana. The word arcana means “matters which are hidden” – a reference to the occult significance of the symbols on each card.

Meanings for some of the best known tarot cards include:

  • Death: mortality, destruction, deterioration, corruption, the loss of a benefactor, the failure of marriage projects
  • Devil: weakness, blindness, pettiness, temptation, obsession
  • Emperor: stability, power, protection, aid, reason, conviction
  • Empress: action, initiative, happiness, pleasure
  • Fool: extravagance, intoxication, delirium, frenzy, ineptitude, carelessness, stupidity, negligence, absence, distraction, apathy, exhaustion
  • Fortune: destiny, success, elevation, luck, happiness, prosperity, improvement, enhancement
  • Hanged Man: wisdom, sacrifice, prophecy, intuition, discernment
  • Hermit: treason, roguery, corruption, trickery, caution
  • Judgment: renewal, deliberation, decision, sentence, determination of a matter
  • Lovers: attraction, beauty, trials overcome, love, obstacles surmounted
  • Magician: skill, diplomacy, self confidence, subtlety, snares of enemies, adaptation, craft, cunning
  • World: voyage, route, flight, assured success, change of place

In a tarot deck, the suits are associated with the four elements: Swords with air, Wands with fire, Cups with water, and Disks with earth.

It should also be noted that certain methods of performing tarot readings consider cards to have a different meaning when they are reversed. In most cases, a reversed card simply has the opposite meaning of the standard tarot definition.

Definition Discrepancies

To some people, one of the most perplexing aspects of learning to read tarot cards is the discrepancies in the many printed definitions for each card. Tarot cards, because of their symbolic nature, are intended to be a tool to help the subconscious mind communicate with the conscious mind. Unfortunately, this makes it very hard to identify an “official” definition for each card.

If you’re serious about learning how to read tarot cards, you may want to keep a definition notebook with one page devoted to each card in the 78-card tarot deck. Write down every definition you encounter for a particular card, as well as your own thoughts on what the symbols may mean. Eventually, you’ll come up with a hybrid definition that is best suited to your needs.

Additional Information

If you’re interested in learning more about tarot card definitions and meanings, yourDictionary recommends visiting these helpful Web sites:

You may also be interested in these reference books:

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