Five of Pentacles: tarot card meaning

In A. E. Waite's Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910), the Five of Pentacles upright means: The card foretells material trouble above all, whether in the form illustrated (that is, destitution) or otherwise. For some cartomancists, it is a card of love and lovers: wife, husband, friend, mistress; also concordance, affinities. These alternatives cannot be harmonized. Reversed: Disorder, chaos, ruin, discord, profligacy.

The picture

“Two mendicants in a snow-storm pass a lighted casement.” A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, 1910

Upright

The card foretells material trouble above all, whether in the form illustrated (that is, destitution) or otherwise. For some cartomancists, it is a card of love and lovers: wife, husband, friend, mistress; also concordance, affinities. These alternatives cannot be harmonized.

Waite's additional meanings: Conquest of fortune by reason.

Reversed

Disorder, chaos, ruin, discord, profligacy.

Waite's additional meanings, reversed: Troubles in love.

In one line

Hard times in the snow, passing a lit window. (Esbat's own summary of Waite's meaning and picture.)

Where it sits in the deck

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

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 Pentacles 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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Keep reading

• Four of Pentacles: tarot card meaning: Four of Pentacles tarot card meaning, upright and reversed, in A. E. Waite's own words (1910), with the original 1910 picture.
• Six of Pentacles: tarot card meaning: Six of Pentacles tarot card meaning, upright and reversed, in A. E. Waite's own words (1910), with the original 1910 picture.
• Tarot card meanings: all 78 cards: All 78 tarot card meanings, upright and reversed, in A. E. Waite's own words (1910), with Pamela Colman Smith's original pictures.