The suit of Pentacles: all 14 cards

The suit of Pentacles is the earth suit of the tarot. Its cards are about the body, home, work, money, skills and the practical care that keeps life going. When Pentacles fill a reading, the question has solid ground under it. This page gathers all 14 Pentacles cards in one place, with a short meaning for each, the story the suit tells from Ace to Ten, and simple ways to read it.

At a glance

• Element: Earth Later tradition
• Themes: the body, work, money, home and practical care
• Other names: Coins or Disks; Denari in Italian decks and Deniers in the Tarot de Marseille
• Playing card suit: diamonds
• Zodiac signs: Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn Later tradition
• Cards: Ace to Ten, then Page, Knight, Queen and King

What the Pentacles are about

Pentacles cover what you can touch: your health and body, your home, your job and money, your skills and the things you build over time. Their hard cards describe hardship, holding on too tightly and impatience. Their best cards describe craft, comfort and lasting legacy.

In the Rider-Waite-Smith deck of 1909, Pamela Colman Smith drew a full scene on every one of these cards. That makes the suit easy to learn: look at what the people in the picture are doing, and you already know most of the meaning.

All 14 cards of Pentacles

Here is each card with its upright keywords from my book. Follow the links for the full meaning, reversed meaning, symbols and a spread for every card.

• Ace of Pentacles: new opportunities, prosperity, stability
• Two of Pentacles: balance, adaptability, time management
• Three of Pentacles: collaboration, skill, teamwork
• Four of Pentacles: security, stability, materialism
• Five of Pentacles: financial loss, poverty, insecurity
• Six of Pentacles: generosity, charity, balance
• Seven of Pentacles: patience, long-term planning, assessment
• Eight of Pentacles: diligence, craftsmanship, skill development
• Nine of Pentacles: self-sufficiency, luxury, abundance
• Ten of Pentacles: legacy, inheritance, long-term success
• Page of Pentacles: ambition, new ventures, learning
• Knight of Pentacles: hard work, responsibility, routine
• Queen of Pentacles: practicality, nurturing, financial security
• King of Pentacles: wealth, abundance, leadership

The story of the Pentacles, Ace to Ten

One easy way to learn a suit is to read the numbered cards as a story. Each number has a shape that repeats across the suits, and the suit gives it a setting.

The Ace offers a seed. In the Two you juggle, and in the Three you build with others. The Four holds on, and the Five struggles in the cold. The Six shares, the Seven waits for the harvest and the Eight practices a craft. The Nine enjoys a garden of your own, and the Ten passes wealth and wisdom down the generations.

This story is a teaching tool. It is a modern habit, not something Waite or Smith wrote down, and you do not need it to read the cards. Many readers find it helps the cards stick.

The court cards of Pentacles

The Pentacles courts are steady people. The Page is a patient student, the Knight is the slowest and most reliable Knight, the Queen nurtures through practical care, and the King manages resources well.

Court cards can describe a person in your life, a part of you or an approach to the situation. The gender or age of the figure does not limit who the card can describe.

Reading the Pentacles in a spread

Many Pentacles in one reading usually means the matter is practical: money, work, health or home. Results come slowly but they last.

No Pentacles at all can suggest that the question is not material, or that practical details are being overlooked. Ask what the body or the budget says.

Look also at which Pentacles cards appear. Low numbers point to beginnings, middle numbers to struggle and adjustment, high numbers to completion. Courts point to people or attitudes. Read the pattern first, then each card.

The history behind the suit

Historical The four suits are older than tarot. They came to Europe with playing cards in the late 1300s, and Italian and Spanish cards still use cups, coins, swords and batons. When tarot appeared in 15th century Italy, it added the trump cards to this ordinary pack of four suits.

Later tradition In Italian decks the suit is Denari (coins) and in the Tarot de Marseille it is Deniers, round coins. Occult writers of the 1800s, and then the Golden Dawn, turned the coins into pentacles, discs engraved with a five-pointed star, and Smith followed that. Waite noted that “in old Tarot packs this suit represented money”, but on this site I read it more widely as everything material you tend. The pairing of suits with elements comes from occult writers of the 1800s and was fixed in its best-known form by the Golden Dawn.

A spread for the Pentacles

Use this four-card spread when you want to look at the body and the other themes of the suit in your life right now.

1. What am I building? My practical goal.
2. What resources do I have? Money, time, skills or help.
3. What needs care? The weak spot.
4. What is my next practical step? One action.

Shuffle the whole deck, not only this suit. If one of the cards that turns up is a Pentacle, pay extra attention to it.

Common questions

What element are the Pentacles?

Earth. Almost every tarot system agrees on this one.

What playing card suit matches Pentacles?

Diamonds. The Italian and Spanish suit of coins became diamonds in French playing cards.

Are Pentacles only about money?

No. They cover everything material: health, home, work, skills and the natural world.

Keep learning

The Pentacles are covered in the lesson Pentacles of my free Tarot for Beginners course. For all four suits and the numbers in one place, see The Minor Arcana: suits and numbers made simple, and for the people cards see Tarot court cards without confusion. You can browse every card in all the card meanings, and my book The Novice’s Guide to Tarot has the full entry for each card.

Sources

• A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (London: Rider, 1910), Part III.
• Pamela Colman Smith and A. E. Waite, the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot (London: Rider, 1909).
• Michael Dummett, The Game of Tarot (London: Duckworth, 1980).
• Lauri Mukkala, The Novice’s Guide to Tarot.