Three of Swords: tarot card meaning

In A. E. Waite's Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910), the Three of Swords upright means: Removal, absence, delay, division, rupture, dispersion, and all that the design signifies naturally, being too simple and obvious to call for specific enumeration. Reversed: Mental alienation, error, loss, distraction, disorder, confusion.

The picture

“Three swords piercing a heart; cloud and rain behind.” A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, 1910

Upright

Removal, absence, delay, division, rupture, dispersion, and all that the design signifies naturally, being too simple and obvious to call for specific enumeration.

Waite's additional meanings: For a woman, the flight of her lover.

Reversed

Mental alienation, error, loss, distraction, disorder, confusion.

Waite's additional meanings, reversed: A meeting with one whom the Querent has compromised; also a nun.

In one line

A heart pierced: rupture and division. (Esbat's own summary of Waite's meaning and picture.)

Where it sits in the deck

The Three of Swords is the third card of the suit of Swords, one of the 56 Minor Arcana. The other Threes: Three of Wands, Three of Cups, Three 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 Three 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.

Get it on Google Play

Keep reading