King of Cups: tarot card meaning

In A. E. Waite's Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910), the King of Cups upright means: Fair man, man of business, law, or divinity; responsible, disposed to oblige the Querent; also equity, art and science, including those who profess science, law and art; creative intelligence. Reversed: Dishonest, double-dealing man; roguery, exaction, injustice, vice, scandal, pillage, considerable loss.

The picture

“He holds a short sceptre in his left hand and a great cup in his right; his throne is set upon the sea; on one side a ship is riding and on the other a dolphin is leaping. The implicit is that the Sign of the Cup naturally refers to water, which appears in all the court cards.” A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, 1910

Upright

Fair man, man of business, law, or divinity; responsible, disposed to oblige the Querent; also equity, art and science, including those who profess science, law and art; creative intelligence.

Waite's additional meanings: Beware of ill-will on the part of a man of position, and of hypocrisy pretending to help.

Reversed

Dishonest, double-dealing man; roguery, exaction, injustice, vice, scandal, pillage, considerable loss.

Waite's additional meanings, reversed: Loss.

In one line

Responsible and kind: art, science and fair dealing. (Esbat's own summary of Waite's meaning and picture.)

Where it sits in the deck

The King of Cups is the fourteenth card of the suit of Cups, one of the 56 Minor Arcana. The other Kings: King of Wands, King of Swords, King 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 King 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.

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