King of Swords: tarot card meaning

In A. E. Waite's Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910), the King of Swords upright means: Whatsoever arises out of the idea of judgment and all its connexions: power, command, authority, militant intelligence, law, offices of the crown, and so forth. Reversed: Cruelty, perversity, barbarity, perfidy, evil intention.

The picture

“He sits in judgment, holding the unsheathed sign of his suit. He recalls, of course, the conventional Symbol of justice in the Trumps Major, and he may represent this virtue, but he is rather the power of life and death, in virtue of his office.” A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, 1910

Upright

Whatsoever arises out of the idea of judgment and all its connexions: power, command, authority, militant intelligence, law, offices of the crown, and so forth.

Waite's additional meanings: A lawyer, senator, doctor.

Reversed

Cruelty, perversity, barbarity, perfidy, evil intention.

Waite's additional meanings, reversed: A bad man; also a caution to put an end to a ruinous lawsuit.

In one line

Judgment and authority: the clear, commanding mind. (Esbat's own summary of Waite's meaning and picture.)

Where it sits in the deck

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