Knight of Swords: tarot card meaning

In A. E. Waite's Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910), the Knight of Swords upright means: Skill, bravery, capacity, defence, address, enmity, wrath, war, destruction, opposition, resistance, ruin. There is therefore a sense in which the card signifies death, but it carries this meaning only in its proximity to other cards of fatality. Reversed: Imprudence, incapacity, extravagance.

The picture

“He is riding in full course, as if scattering his enemies. In the design he is really a prototypical hero of romantic chivalry. He might almost be Galahad, whose sword is swift and sure because he is clean of heart.” A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, 1910

Upright

Skill, bravery, capacity, defence, address, enmity, wrath, war, destruction, opposition, resistance, ruin. There is therefore a sense in which the card signifies death, but it carries this meaning only in its proximity to other cards of fatality.

Waite's additional meanings: A soldier, man of arms, satellite, stipendiary; heroic action predicted for soldier.

Reversed

Imprudence, incapacity, extravagance.

Waite's additional meanings, reversed: Dispute with an imbecile person; for a woman, struggle with a rival, who will be conquered.

In one line

Skill and bravery, riding at full speed. (Esbat's own summary of Waite's meaning and picture.)

Where it sits in the deck

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