Tarot Glossary
Short, honest definitions of the terms used across our card meanings, combination readings and guides. Terms that have their own section on the site link to it.
- Arcana
- From Latin arcanum, «secret». The collective name for tarot cards: 22 Major and 56 Minor Arcana make up the 78-card deck.
- Major Arcana
- The 22 trump cards, from the Fool to the World. In readings they mark the theme of fate rather than everyday circumstance. All 22 Majors →
- Minor Arcana
- The 56 cards of the four suits — Wands, Cups, Swords and Pentacles. They describe the everyday circumstances in which the big themes unfold.
- Suit
- One of the four families of the Minor Arcana, each tied to an element: Wands to Fire, Cups to Water, Swords to Air, Pentacles to Earth. Browse by suit →
- Querent
- The person asking the question — from Latin quaerens, «the one who seeks». In a self-reading, the reader and the querent are the same person.
- Spread
- A fixed layout of positions into which cards are dealt. Each position gives its card a lens: «past», «obstacle», «advice». Spreads catalogue →
- Position
- A slot in the spread with its own meaning. The same card reads differently in the position of «obstacle» than in «advice» — position always modifies meaning.
- Significator
- A card chosen to represent the querent or the matter itself before dealing, most often a court card. Classic in the Celtic Cross, optional in modern practice.
- Reversed card
- A card that lands upside down. Not a curse: it usually turns the card's energy inward, delays it or shows its shadow side. Every card page here lists both sets of keywords.
- Elemental dignities
- A technique for reading how neighbouring cards influence each other by element: Fire and Air feed each other, Water and Earth support each other, opposing pairs weaken one another. How combinations work →
- Decan
- A ten-degree segment of the zodiac assigned to each numbered card 2–10 in the Golden Dawn system — for example, the Ten of Wands is Saturn in Sagittarius.
- Rider–Waite–Smith
- The most influential tarot deck, published in 1909 — designed by A. E. Waite and drawn by Pamela Colman Smith. Most modern decks and meanings, including ours, build on it. Our methodology →
- Archetype
- In C. G. Jung's sense — a recurring figure of the collective unconscious. We read the Major Arcana as archetypes: the Fool as the beginning of the journey, the Tower as the collapse of the false.
- Shadow
- Jung's term for the parts of the psyche a person does not acknowledge. Cards like the Devil and the Moon open shadow work; each of our combination readings has a Shadow Side section.
- Numerology
- Reading the numbers on the cards: aces begin a story, fives destabilize it, tens complete it. Card numbers above nine are reduced by summing digits.
- Court cards
- Page, Knight, Queen and King of each suit. In readings they describe people, roles or degrees of maturity of the suit's energy.
- Pips
- The numbered cards Ace to Ten of each suit — forty cards describing the everyday stages of each element's story.
- Celtic Cross
- The most famous ten-card spread: situation, obstacle, roots, past, crown, near future, self, environment, hopes and fears, outcome. Spread guides →
- Card of the day
- A single card drawn in the morning as the day's lens. The healthiest way to learn the deck: one card, one honest evening review.
- The Fool's Journey
- A way of reading the 22 Majors in order as one story of inner growth — from the Fool's leap through trials and collapse to the completion of the World. Walk the journey →