Ace of Swords: tarot card meaning

In A. E. Waite's Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910), the Ace of Swords upright means: Triumph, the excessive degree in everything, conquest, triumph of force. It is a card of great force, in love as well as in hatred. The crown may carry a much higher significance than comes usually within the sphere of fortune-telling. Reversed: The same, but the results are disastrous; another account says: conception, childbirth, augmentation, multiplicity.

The picture

“A hand issues from a cloud, grasping a sword, the point of which is encircled by a crown.” A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, 1910

Upright

Triumph, the excessive degree in everything, conquest, triumph of force. It is a card of great force, in love as well as in hatred. The crown may carry a much higher significance than comes usually within the sphere of fortune-telling.

Waite's additional meanings: Great prosperity or great misery.

Reversed

The same, but the results are disastrous; another account says: conception, childbirth, augmentation, multiplicity.

Waite's additional meanings, reversed: Marriage broken off, for a woman, through her own imprudence.

In one line

Triumph and conquest: force in its full degree. (Esbat's own summary of Waite's meaning and picture.)

Where it sits in the deck

The Ace of Swords is the first card of the suit of Swords, one of the 56 Minor Arcana. The other Aces: Ace of Wands, Ace of Cups, Ace of Pentacles.

In Esbat

Esbat deals a card of the day, face down until you turn it, and holds all 78 cards in the 1910 pictures with Waite's meanings, upright and reversed. The Ace of Swords can be shared as a picture. All 78 tarot card meanings.

Sources

Meanings and picture descriptions: A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (London: Rider, 1910), public domain, checked against the Wikisource transcription. Picture: Pamela Colman Smith, 1910, public domain. Like the app, this page records what the book says; it does not promise outcomes.

Last updated October 25, 2026.

Esbat: Tarot & Book of Shadows, on Google Play

A card of the day, face down until you turn it, and all 78 cards in the 1910 pictures with Waite's meanings, upright and reversed. For Android.

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