Knight of Pentacles: tarot card meaning

In A. E. Waite's Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910), the Knight of Pentacles upright means: Utility, serviceableness, interest, responsibility, rectitude, all on the normal and external plane. Reversed: inertia, idleness, repose of that kind, stagnation; also placidity, discouragement, carelessness.

The picture

“He rides a slow, enduring, heavy horse, to which his own aspect corresponds. He exhibits his symbol, but does not look therein.” A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, 1910

Upright

Utility, serviceableness, interest, responsibility, rectitude, all on the normal and external plane.

Waite's additional meanings: An useful man; useful discoveries.

Reversed

inertia, idleness, repose of that kind, stagnation; also placidity, discouragement, carelessness.

Waite's additional meanings, reversed: A brave man out of employment.

In one line

Utility and responsibility: slow, sure, upright. (Esbat's own summary of Waite's meaning and picture.)

Where it sits in the deck

The Knight of Pentacles is the twelfth card of the suit of Pentacles, one of the 56 Minor Arcana. The other Knights: Knight of Wands, Knight of Cups, Knight 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 Knight 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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