Card Meanings

Card Meanings

All 78 cards of the Rider-Waite-Smith deck — the 22 Major Arcana and the 56 Minor Arcana across four suits. Each card carries a name, a keyword, and a body of meaning shaped by the tradition. Detailed interpretations are written in our voice — calm, anti-fortune-teller, attributed to RWS.

The deck splits into two halves. The Major Arcana mark turning points and larger forces — the archetypes a reading leans on when the pattern is big. The Minor Arcana describe the texture of daily life across four suits: Wands, Cups, Swords, and Pentacles. Read a Major for the overall arc, a suit card for the everyday detail.