Nine of Swords: tarot card meaning

In A. E. Waite's Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910), the Nine of Swords upright means: Death, failure, miscarriage, delay, deception, disappointment, despair. Reversed: Imprisonment, suspicion, doubt, reasonable fear, shame.

The picture

“One seated on her couch in lamentation, with the swords over her. She is as one who knows no sorrow which is like unto hers. It is a card of utter desolation.” A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, 1910

Upright

Death, failure, miscarriage, delay, deception, disappointment, despair.

Waite's additional meanings: An ecclesiastic, a priest; generally, a card of bad omen.

Reversed

Imprisonment, suspicion, doubt, reasonable fear, shame.

Waite's additional meanings, reversed: Good ground for suspicion against a doubtful person.

In one line

A night of lamentation and despair. (Esbat's own summary of Waite's meaning and picture.)

Where it sits in the deck

The Nine of Swords is the ninth card of the suit of Swords, one of the 56 Minor Arcana. The other Nines: Nine of Wands, Nine of Cups, Nine 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 Nine 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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