Numbers in Tarot: What Ace to Ten Mean, Checked Against Waite

Written by Orbitarot · Sources: listed at the end of this guide · Updated October 7, 2026

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Key finding: Set side by side, Waite's exact 1910 divinatory meanings for the four Fives share struggle and loss, while for the Sevens he writes "exceedingly contradictory" and "uncertain in its import"; and two Minor Arcana of the same rank turn up in 1 - 69,804/76,076 = 8.24% of three-card draws.

What do numbers mean in tarot?

In tarot, the numbers mostly matter in the Minor Arcana, where each of the four suits runs from Ace to Ten. Modern readers give every number a theme: Aces open something, Fives bring friction, Tens close a cycle. The suit tells you which area of life is involved, and the number tells you what stage it has reached.

So the Five of Cups is friction in feelings, while the Five of Pentacles is friction in money, work or home. That is a handy shortcut, and it is how our reading engine comments on repeated numbers. But it is fair to ask where the shortcut comes from, and whether one of the most influential tarot books of the last century actually supports it. This guide checks the themes against A. E. Waite's own divinatory meanings from The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910), the companion book to the 1909 deck drawn by Pamela Colman Smith, and quotes him exactly so you can compare.

Here are the ten themes we use, with each number's four cards. They match the themes in our guide to tarot card combinations, so the guide and the tool say the same thing.

The court cards (Pages, Knights, Queens and Kings) follow ranks rather than numbers, and have their own guide: tarot court cards explained. The 22 Major Arcana carry the numbers 0 to 21, which work differently and are covered further down.

Did Waite give each number a meaning?

No. In his card-by-card divinatory meanings for the 40 numbered Minor Arcana, Waite never states a general meaning for a number. He describes each card from its picture and from older fortune-telling lists, and he often admits the lists disagree. Number themes are a reading convention laid over his text, not something he set out.

You can test this by putting all four cards of one number side by side. If the number carried a fixed meaning, the four texts should share it, with only the suit changing the setting. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they clearly do not. Two numbers show the contrast best: the Fives, where the theme holds, and the Sevens, where Waite himself says it falls apart. In each case below the text is quoted exactly from his book, with his double hyphens shown as commas.

Where does the number theme hold? The four Fives

The Fives are the strongest case for number meanings. Three of Waite's four Fives describe struggle or loss outright, and the fourth, the Five of Wands, describes a fight, even if a mock one. Read together, they support the modern idea of Five as friction and disruption, with each suit naming where it happens.

Five of Wands

Imitation, as, for example, sham fight, but also the strenuous competition and struggle of the search after riches and fortune. In this sense it connects with the battle of life. Hence some attributions say that it is a card of gold, gain, opulence. A. E. Waite, Five of Wands, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910)

Five of Cups

It is a card of loss, but something remains over; three have been taken, but two are left; it is a card of inheritance, patrimony, transmission, but not corresponding to expectations; with some interpreters it is a card of marriage, but not without bitterness or frustration. A. E. Waite, Five of Cups, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910)

Five of Swords

Degradation, destruction, revocation, infamy, dishonour, loss, with the variants and analogues of these. A. E. Waite, Five of Swords, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910)

Five of Pentacles

The card foretells material trouble above all, whether in the form illustrated, that is, destitution, or otherwise. For some cartomancists, it is a card of love and lovers, wife, husband, friend, mistress; also concordance, affinities. These alternatives cannot be harmonized. A. E. Waite, Five of Pentacles, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910)

Look at what repeats. Wands has the "battle of life", Cups has "loss", Swords has "destruction" and "loss", and Pentacles has "material trouble above all". The suit changes the setting, exactly as the shortcut promises: competition, feelings, conflict, money. Yet even here Waite keeps the older, contrary readings in view. The Five of Wands can also mean "gold, gain, opulence", and of the Five of Pentacles he writes that the alternatives "cannot be harmonized". The theme holds, but not tidily.

The Aces show a similar, softer pattern. Only the Ace of Wands names a beginning directly, with "principle, beginning, source". The other three Aces read more as a gift arriving at full strength: "joy, content" for Cups, "Triumph" for Swords and "Perfect contentment" for Pentacles. Fresh start and full gift are close enough that the Ace theme survives the test.

Where does the number theme break? The four Sevens

The Sevens are where a single number meaning struggles most. Waite calls the Seven of Pentacles "exceedingly contradictory" and says the Seven of Swords is "uncertain in its import". Wands gives valour and success, Cups gives fancy that lasts no time. No one idea of Seven covers all four, which is worth knowing before you lean on it.

Seven of Wands

It is a card of valour, for, on the surface, six are attacking one, who has, however, the vantage position. On the intellectual plane, it signifies discussion, wordy strife; in business, negotiations, war of trade, barter, competition. It is further a card of success, for the combatant is on the top and his enemies may be unable to reach him. A. E. Waite, Seven of Wands, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910)

Seven of Cups

Fairy favours, images of reflection, sentiment, imagination, things seen in the glass of contemplation; some attainment in these degrees, but nothing permanent or substantial is suggested. A. E. Waite, Seven of Cups, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910)

Seven of Swords

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. A. E. Waite, Seven of Swords, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910)

Seven of Pentacles

These are exceedingly contradictory; in the main, it is a card of money, business, barter; but one reading gives altercation, quarrels, and another innocence, ingenuity, purgation. A. E. Waite, Seven of Pentacles, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910)

The modern theme for Sevens, reflection, testing and patience, fits two of these well. The Seven of Wands is a test under pressure, and the Seven of Cups is about "things seen in the glass of contemplation". For the Seven of Swords and Seven of Pentacles, Waite's own lists pull in several directions at once: "a plan that may fail" next to "hope, confidence", and "money, business, barter" next to "innocence, ingenuity, purgation". Today's readings of those two cards, deception for Swords and patient effort for Pentacles, owe more to the pictures than to any shared meaning of Seven.

The Tens: completion, but not always a happy one

The Tens land in between. For Cups Waite writes "the perfection of that state", and for Pentacles "the abode of a family", both clear pictures of something complete. The Ten of Wands, though, is "oppression simply", and the Ten of Swords "pain, affliction, tears, sadness, desolation". Completion works as a theme only if you accept that some endings hurt. That is why our table describes Ten as one chapter closing as the next begins, rather than as a reward.

How often do repeated numbers come up in a reading?

In a three-card reading, at least two Minor Arcana cards of the same rank turn up 8.24% of the time, about once in twelve readings. Counting only Ace to Ten, ignoring court ranks, it is 5.89%. For one particular number, such as two or more Fives, it is just 0.59%. Here is the arithmetic.

• All three-card hands: C(78,3) = 76,076.
• Hands with at least two cards of one given rank: two of the four plus any of the other 74 cards, C(4,2) x 74 = 444, plus all three from that rank, C(4,3) = 4. Total 448.
• Any rank repeated: there are 14 ranks (Ace to Ten plus four courts), and three cards cannot hold two different pairs, so 14 x 448 = 6,272 hands, with no double counting.
• No repeat: 76,076 - 6,272 = 69,804. So the chance of a repeat is 1 - 69,804/76,076 = 6,272/76,076 = 8.24%.
• Numbers only: 10 x 448 = 4,480, and 4,480/76,076 = 5.89%.
• One specific number: 448/76,076 = 0.59%.

The longer the spread, the more ordinary a repeat becomes: 25.41% in five cards and 75.19% in a ten-card Celtic cross, where three readings in four have one. So a pair of Fives in a three-card reading is worth a second look, while a pair in a Celtic cross is normal and needs less weight.

How should you read numbers in a spread?

Read the number as a stage and the suit as a setting, then check the result against the card's picture and its position in the spread. Use the number theme as a first guess, not a rule, because Waite's own texts show that some numbers, such as the Sevens, do not share one meaning across the suits.

1. Start with the card itself. The picture carries more of the meaning than the number does. Each card page, such as the Five of Cups, shows the scene, the upright and reversed meaning and Waite's original text.
2. Add the number as a lens. Ask what stage this suggests: a beginning, a test, a peak or an ending.
3. Add the suit as the setting. Wands for energy and ambition, Cups for feelings, Swords for thoughts and conflict, Pentacles for work, money and home.
4. Notice repeats, then weigh them by spread size. Two Fives in three cards (0.59%) is a clear signal. Two of any rank in ten cards is routine.
5. Keep the reading open. A number theme describes a pattern you can think about. It does not predict what will happen.

What about the numbers on the Major Arcana?

The Major Arcana are numbered 0 to 21, from The Fool to The World, and those numbers work as an order rather than as the Ace to Ten themes. Some readers use them for numerology, adding up a birth date to reach a Major card. That is a later practice, separate from the Minor Arcana number themes.

Waite's own ordering shows how loose the numbering can be. Of his Strength card he writes that it "has been interchanged with that of justice, which is usually numbered eight". So Strength is VIII and Justice XI in his deck, while many older decks have them the other way round. If you want to try the birth date method, our tarot birth card calculator adds the month, day and year and reduces the digits until the total is 22 or less, then shows the matching cards from the Major Arcana. Treat it as a prompt for reflection, like any other card.

Questions

What do numbers mean in tarot?

In the Minor Arcana, each number from Ace to Ten has a theme, from fresh starts (Ace) through friction (Five) to completion (Ten). The suit shows the area of life, and the number shows the stage.

What does it mean to get two cards of the same number?

It suggests the reading is stressing that number's theme, such as friction for two Fives. In a three-card reading, two or more Minor Arcana of the same rank appear 8.24% of the time; any specific number, such as Fives, only 0.59%.

Is tarot numerology the same as number meanings in the Minor Arcana?

Not quite. Tarot numerology usually reduces a birth date to a Major Arcana card from 0 to 21, while Minor Arcana number themes describe stages from Ace to Ten within each suit.

Did A. E. Waite assign meanings to tarot numbers?

Not in his card-by-card divinatory meanings for the numbered cards. He describes each card from its picture and older lists, and he calls some of them contradictory, such as the Seven of Pentacles.

Sources

• A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (London: William Rider and Son, 1910), divinatory meanings of the Lesser Arcana; public domain: https://sacred-texts.com/tarot/pkt/index.htm
• Repeated-rank odds: our own Python calculation (C(78,3) = 76,076; 14 x 448 = 6,272 hands with a repeat): Computed October 2026

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