Seven of Cups: tarot card meaning

In A. E. Waite's Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910), the Seven of Cups upright means: Fairy favours, images of reflection, sentiment, imagination, things seen in the glass of contemplation; some attainment in these degrees, but nothing permanent or substantial is suggested. Reversed: Desire, will, determination, project.

The picture

“Strange chalices of vision, but the images are more especially those of the fantastic spirit.” A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, 1910

Upright

Fairy favours, images of reflection, sentiment, imagination, things seen in the glass of contemplation; some attainment in these degrees, but nothing permanent or substantial is suggested.

Waite's additional meanings: Fair child; idea, design, resolve, movement.

Reversed

Desire, will, determination, project.

Waite's additional meanings, reversed: Success, if accompanied by the Three of Cups.

In one line

Fairy favours and visions in the glass: nothing yet solid. (Esbat's own summary of Waite's meaning and picture.)

Where it sits in the deck

The Seven of Cups is the seventh card of the suit of Cups, one of the 56 Minor Arcana. The other Sevens: Seven of Wands, Seven of Swords, Seven 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 Seven of Cups 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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