Five of Cups: tarot card meaning

In A. E. Waite's Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910), the Five of Cups upright means: It is a card of loss, but something remains over; three have been taken, but two are left; it is a card of inheritance, patrimony, transmission, but not corresponding to expectations; with some interpreters it is a card of marriage, but not without bitterness or frustration. Reversed: News, alliances, affinity, consanguinity, ancestry, return, false projects.

The picture

“A dark, cloaked figure, looking sideways at three prone cups; two others stand upright behind him; a bridge is in the background, leading to a small keep or holding.” A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, 1910

Upright

It is a card of loss, but something remains over; three have been taken, but two are left; it is a card of inheritance, patrimony, transmission, but not corresponding to expectations; with some interpreters it is a card of marriage, but not without bitterness or frustration.

Waite's additional meanings: Generally favourable; a happy marriage; also patrimony, legacies, gifts, success in enterprise.

Reversed

News, alliances, affinity, consanguinity, ancestry, return, false projects.

Waite's additional meanings, reversed: Return of some relative who has not been seen for long.

In one line

Loss, but something remains: two cups still stand. (Esbat's own summary of Waite's meaning and picture.)

Where it sits in the deck

The Five of Cups is the fifth card of the suit of Cups, one of the 56 Minor Arcana. The other Fives: Five of Wands, Five of Swords, Five 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 Five of Cups 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.

Get it on Google Play

Keep reading