Queen of Swords: tarot card meaning

In A. E. Waite's Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910), the Queen of Swords upright means: Widowhood, female sadness and embarrassment, absence, sterility, mourning, privation, separation. Reversed: Malice, bigotry, artifice, prudery, bale, deceit.

The picture

“Her right hand raises the weapon vertically and the hilt rests on an arm of her royal chair; the left hand is extended, the arm raised; her countenance is severe but chastened; it suggests familiarity with sorrow. It does not represent mercy, and, her sword notwithstanding, she is scarcely a symbol of power.” A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, 1910

Upright

Widowhood, female sadness and embarrassment, absence, sterility, mourning, privation, separation.

Waite's additional meanings: A widow.

Reversed

Malice, bigotry, artifice, prudery, bale, deceit.

Waite's additional meanings, reversed: A bad woman, with ill-will towards the Querent.

In one line

A severe but chastened face, familiar with sorrow. (Esbat's own summary of Waite's meaning and picture.)

Where it sits in the deck

The Queen of Swords is the thirteenth card of the suit of Swords, one of the 56 Minor Arcana. The other Queens: Queen of Wands, Queen of Cups, Queen 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 Queen 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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