Minor Arcana Tarot Card Meanings: The 56 Suit Cards
The Minor Arcana are the 56 cards that describe everyday life: what you feel, think, do and own. Where the Major Arcana show the big lesson, the Minor Arcana show how it plays out on an ordinary Tuesday.
Learning the Minor Arcana is easier than it looks. Once you know what each suit stands for and what each number means, most card meanings follow logically. The Five of Cups, for example, combines five (disruption) with water (emotion): emotional loss.
The four suits and their elements
| Suit | Element | Signs | Themes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wands | Fire | Aries, Leo, Sagittarius | energy, passion, creativity, ambition and action |
| Cups | Water | Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces | emotions, love, relationships, intuition and creativity |
| Swords | Air | Libra, Aquarius, Gemini | thought, truth, communication, conflict and decisions |
| Pentacles | Earth | Capricorn, Taurus, Virgo | money, work, the body, home and material security |
What the numbers mean
| Rank | Theme | Cards |
|---|---|---|
| Ace | beginnings and pure potential | Wands · Cups · Swords · Pentacles |
| Two | choice, balance and partnership | Wands · Cups · Swords · Pentacles |
| Three | growth, expression and first results | Wands · Cups · Swords · Pentacles |
| Four | stability, structure and foundations | Wands · Cups · Swords · Pentacles |
| Five | disruption, conflict and change | Wands · Cups · Swords · Pentacles |
| Six | harmony, restoration and exchange | Wands · Cups · Swords · Pentacles |
| Seven | testing, assessment and inner work | Wands · Cups · Swords · Pentacles |
| Eight | movement, mastery and momentum | Wands · Cups · Swords · Pentacles |
| Nine | culmination and the last step before completion | Wands · Cups · Swords · Pentacles |
| Ten | completion, and the element carried to its fullest (sometimes to excess) | Wands · Cups · Swords · Pentacles |
The court cards
Each suit has four court cards. They can represent people, but also roles you play or approaches you need to take. In the elemental system most modern readers use, each rank adds its own element to the suit's element.
| Rank | Element | Role | Cards |
|---|---|---|---|
| Page | Earth | students, messengers and beginnings | Wands · Cups · Swords · Pentacles |
| Knight | Air | movement, pursuit and action | Wands · Cups · Swords · Pentacles |
| Queen | Water | inner mastery, nurturing and emotional intelligence | Wands · Cups · Swords · Pentacles |
| King | Fire | outer mastery, authority and leadership | Wands · Cups · Swords · Pentacles |
Note that elemental attributions for court cards vary between traditions. The Golden Dawn used Knight, Queen, Prince and Princess with a different order; we follow the convention most common in Rider-Waite-Smith based reading today.
Sources and further reading
- Rider–Waite Tarot · Wikipedia
- Major Arcana · Wikipedia
- Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (astrological and elemental correspondences) · Wikipedia
- A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910), the companion book to the deck illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith
Reviewed by The Mystica Editorial Team under our editorial standards. Last reviewed: September 28, 2026.
Frequently asked questions
How many Minor Arcana cards are there?
There are 56: four suits of 14 cards, each with Ace to Ten plus four court cards.
Are the Minor Arcana like playing cards?
Yes. Modern playing cards share the same ancestor. Wands correspond roughly to clubs, Cups to hearts, Swords to spades and Pentacles to diamonds, although tarot has an extra court card, the Knight or Page.