Tarot Glossary
Use this glossary when a lesson, book, or card page uses a term you do not recognize.
Arcana
A group of cards. A standard 78-card deck has 22 Major Arcana and 56 Minor Arcana.
Major Arcana
Twenty-two cards commonly used for broad themes, archetypes, turning points, and major patterns.
Minor Arcana
Fifty-six cards divided into Wands, Cups, Swords, and Pentacles.
Suit
One of the four Minor Arcana families.
Court Cards
Page, Knight, Queen, and King in each Minor Arcana suit.
Pip Cards
The Ace through Ten cards in each Minor Arcana suit.
Spread
A layout that assigns a specific job or position to each card.
Position
The question or role assigned to one place in a spread.
Querent
The person whose question or situation is being explored.
Reader
The person interpreting the cards.
Reversal
A card drawn upside down; it may be read as blocked, internalized, delayed, excessive, or omitted as a method choice.
Upright
A card appearing in its standard orientation.
Clarifier
An additional card drawn to explore one part of an earlier card or position.
Significator
A card intentionally selected to represent a person, role, or theme in some methods.
Intuition
A felt or immediate impression; an interpretive cue, not automatic proof.
Symbol
An image, object, color, gesture, number, or scene that can carry meaning in context.
Correspondence
A traditional association between a card and another symbolic system.
Element
A symbolic association often used with the suits: Fire/Wands, Water/Cups, Air/Swords, Earth/Pentacles.
Numerology
Using number patterns as one layer of tarot interpretation.
Deck
A complete set of tarot cards.
Rider-Waite-Smith
An influential tarot system first published in 1909, illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith and associated with A. E. Waite.
Marseille
A historic family of tarot designs with distinctive pip-card conventions.
Thoth
A tarot system designed by Aleister Crowley and painted by Lady Frieda Harris.
Keyword
A short memory cue, useful as a starting point rather than a complete interpretation.
Context
The question, position, surrounding cards, and circumstances that shape interpretation.
Synthesis
Combining multiple cards into one coherent reading.
Shadow
A term some readers use for avoided, hidden, or difficult aspects of a card or situation.
Outcome
A possible direction or consequence, not a guaranteed future.
Agency
The querent's ability to choose, respond, set boundaries, and make decisions.
Grounding
Ending or framing a reading in concrete, present-focused observations and practical next steps.