Seven of Swords: tarot card meaning

In A. E. Waite's Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910), the Seven of Swords upright means: Design, attempt, wish, hope, confidence; also quarrelling, a plan that may fail, annoyance. The design is uncertain in its import, because the significations are widely at variance with each other. Reversed: Good advice, counsel, instruction, slander, babbling.

The picture

“A man in the act of carrying away five swords rapidly; the two others of the card remain stuck in the ground. A camp is close at hand.” A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, 1910

Upright

Design, attempt, wish, hope, confidence; also quarrelling, a plan that may fail, annoyance. The design is uncertain in its import, because the significations are widely at variance with each other.

Waite's additional meanings: Dark girl; a good card; it promises a country life after a competence has been secured.

Reversed

Good advice, counsel, instruction, slander, babbling.

Waite's additional meanings, reversed: Good advice, probably neglected.

In one line

A plan in motion that may fail. (Esbat's own summary of Waite's meaning and picture.)

Where it sits in the deck

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