Ten of Wands: tarot card meaning

In A. E. Waite's Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910), the Ten of Wands upright means: A card of many significances, and some of the readings cannot be harmonized. I set aside that which connects it with honour and good faith. The chief meaning is oppression simply, but it is also fortune, gain, any kind of success, and then it is the oppression of these things. It is also a card of false-seeming, disguise, perfidy. The place which the figure is approaching may suffer from the rods that he carries. Success is stultified if the Nine of Swords follows, and if it is a question of a lawsuit, there will be certain loss. Reversed: Contrarieties, difficulties, intrigues, and their analogies.

The picture

“A man oppressed by the weight of the ten staves which he is carrying.” A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, 1910

Upright

A card of many significances, and some of the readings cannot be harmonized. I set aside that which connects it with honour and good faith. The chief meaning is oppression simply, but it is also fortune, gain, any kind of success, and then it is the oppression of these things. It is also a card of false-seeming, disguise, perfidy. The place which the figure is approaching may suffer from the rods that he carries. Success is stultified if the Nine of Swords follows, and if it is a question of a lawsuit, there will be certain loss.

Waite's additional meanings: Difficulties and contradictions, if near a good card.

Reversed

Contrarieties, difficulties, intrigues, and their analogies.

In one line

A heavy load: success that has become a burden. (Esbat's own summary of Waite's meaning and picture.)

Where it sits in the deck

The Ten of Wands is the tenth card of the suit of Wands, one of the 56 Minor Arcana. The other Tens: Ten of Cups, Ten of Swords, Ten 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 Ten of Wands 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.

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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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