Tarot Glossary

The words readers use, in plain English.

Ace

The first card of each suit. An Ace is the suit's energy in its purest, newest form — a seed rather than a harvest.See: Ace of Cups

Arcana

Latin for 'secrets'. A tarot deck has two: the 22-card Major Arcana and the 56-card Minor Arcana.

Card of the day

A single card drawn each morning as a theme to notice, not a forecast to fear.See: Today's card

Cartomancy

Reading with an ordinary 52-card playing deck. The suits map loosely onto tarot's: hearts to cups, diamonds to pentacles, clubs to wands, spades to swords.See: Playing card meanings

Celtic Cross

The best-known ten-card spread: a cross of six cards mapping the situation and a staff of four mapping you inside it.See: Celtic Cross spread

Clarifier

An extra card drawn after a reading to shed light on one position that felt unclear. Use it sparingly — a reading full of clarifiers is a reading avoiding its answer.

Cleansing a deck

Any small ritual that marks a deck as fresh — shuffling thoroughly, a moment of quiet, moonlight. What matters is the reset in your attention, not the method.

Court cards

The Page, Knight, Queen and King of each suit — sixteen cards that often stand for people, or for a way of behaving you are being asked to take up.

Cups

The suit of emotions, relationships and intuition. Element: Water.See: All cards

Cutting the deck

Splitting the shuffled deck and restacking it, traditionally with the left hand. It is the moment the seeker's choice enters the reading.See: Draw your cards

Deck interview

A spread you lay with a new deck to learn its personality — what it is strong at, how it speaks — before using it for questions.

Element

Each card belongs to Fire, Water, Air or Earth. The suits carry one each; the Major Arcana carry theirs by astrological attribution.

Elemental dignities

Reading cards by how their elements interact: Fire and Air strengthen each other, Water and Earth do too, opposites weaken each other. An alternative to reversals.

Fool's Journey

Reading the Major Arcana in order as one story — the Fool setting out at 0 and arriving at the World at 21 — so each card is a stage of growth.See: The Fool

Intuitive reading

Reading from what the image stirs in you rather than from a book meaning. Most readers blend both: the book gives the vocabulary, intuition the sentence.

Jumper card

A card that falls out of the deck while shuffling. Many readers treat it as an extra message worth a look before the reading begins.

Major Arcana

The 22 trump cards, numbered 0 to 21, from the Fool to the World. They speak of life's large themes and turning points.See: All cards

Minor Arcana

The 56 cards of the four suits — ten numbered cards and four court cards each. They speak of daily life and the situations you can act on.

Numerology (in tarot)

The meaning carried by a card's number: ones begin, fives disrupt, tens complete. Reading the numbers across a spread shows the stage a situation has reached.See: Numerology

Pentacles

The suit of money, work, the body and the material world. Element: Earth. Also called Coins or Disks.

Pip cards

The numbered cards, Ace to Ten, of the Minor Arcana. Named after the suit symbols ('pips') counted on older decks.

Position

A fixed place in a spread with its own question — 'the past', 'the challenge'. The same card means something different in a different position.See: Tarot spreads

Querent

The person asking the question. When you read for yourself, you are both reader and querent.

Reading

The whole act: a question, a shuffle, a spread, and the story the cards tell together. A reading offers perspective; the decision stays yours.

Reversal

A card that lands upside down. Read as the card's energy blocked, inward, delayed or overdone — not simply its opposite. Some readers do not use reversals at all.

Rider-Waite-Smith

The 1909 deck drawn by Pamela Colman Smith under A. E. Waite's direction, and the model for most modern decks. Its fully illustrated minor cards made tarot readable by image.

Significator

A card chosen to represent the querent and placed in the centre before the reading, often a court card matching their temperament.

Spread

A fixed layout of positions the cards are laid into. The spread decides the questions; the cards answer them.See: Tarot spreads

Suit

One of the four families of the Minor Arcana — Wands, Cups, Swords, Pentacles — each tied to an element and an area of life.

Swords

The suit of thought, conflict, truth and communication. Element: Air.

Synchronicity

Jung's word for a meaningful coincidence. It is the usual explanation readers give for why a random draw can still speak to you.

Tarot de Marseille

The older French deck pattern, whose numbered minor cards show only their suit symbols. Read more through number and suit than through pictures.

Three-card spread

Past, present and future — the smallest spread that tells a story, and the one to start with.See: Three-card spread

Trumps

The older name for the Major Arcana, from the card game tarot was first made for in fifteenth-century Italy.

Upright

A card that lands the right way up. Its energy is flowing outward and expressed as the card's core meaning.

Wands

The suit of drive, creativity, ambition and passion. Element: Fire. Also called Rods or Staves.

Yes or no reading

A single card read for a direct answer: most cards lean yes or no, and a few say 'not yet'.See: Yes / No tarot

Zodiac attribution

The astrological sign or planet traditionally linked to a card — the Emperor to Aries, the Moon to Pisces. It is how tarot and astrology are read together.See: Birth chart