Seven of Pentacles tarot card meaning: upright, reversed and symbols

The Seven of Pentacles shows a young farmer leaning on his hoe and looking at seven pentacles growing on a green bush. He has worked hard, and now he pauses to see what is growing. It is a card of patience, assessment and long-term effort. This page covers what the Seven of Pentacles means upright and reversed, the symbols in the 1909 card and a spread for checking your progress.

At a glance

• Upright keywords: patience, long-term planning, assessment
• Reversed keywords: impatience, lack of reward, poor planning
• Number: 7 in the suit of Pentacles
• Suit and element: Pentacles, Earth Later tradition
• Astrology: Saturn in Taurus Later tradition
• Yes or no: Yes Modern

The element and the planet in a sign (one of the 36 ten-degree slices of the zodiac called decans) come from the Golden Dawn system of the 1880s and 1890s, not from the first tarot decks. The yes or no lean is a modern reading habit. Use these layers if they help you remember the card, and skip them if they get in the way.

The card: what Pamela Colman Smith drew

Waite wrote: “A young man, leaning on his staff, looks intently at seven pentacles attached to a clump of greenery on his right; one would say that these were his treasures and that his heart was there.”

Leaning on the hoe

He rests on his tool. The work is not over, but it is time to look.

The bush

The pentacles grow like fruit on a plant. Results take seasons, not days.

His gaze

He looks closely. The card asks for honest assessment.

Upright meaning

Upright, the Seven of Pentacles asks you to pause long enough to assess what your effort is producing. A project may be developing, but it still needs time before you can judge the result. The card asks for patience and honest review.

Look at what is growing and what is not. Adjust, prune and keep going. Long-term goals need long-term care.

Reversed meaning

Reversed, the Seven of Pentacles can show impatience, lack of reward or poor planning. Effort may go into the wrong plant.

Check whether the work fits the goal. If not, change course. If it does, give it more time.

Reversals are optional. Many readers never use them and read every card upright, and that is a complete way to read. If you do use them, decide before you shuffle what a reversed card will mean for you, and keep to that choice for the whole reading.

In love, work and spirituality

Love

Upright, a relationship that is growing slowly. Reversed, impatience.

Work and money

Reviewing a long-term project. Reversed, effort with little result.

Spirituality

Patient practice. Reversed, wanting quick results.

As feelings

As someone’s feelings, the Seven of Pentacles shows patience. They are considering the relationship carefully.

The Seven of Pentacles as past, present, future and advice

• Past: Slow effort got you here.
• Present: Pause and assess.
• Future: Results are on the way, slowly.
• Advice: Keep tending.

A Minor Arcana card usually describes the everyday texture of a situation: a mood, a conversation, a task or a step. If the Seven of Pentacles appears next to a Major Arcana card, let the Major name the big theme and let this card show how it is playing out in the body and the other things Pentacles rule. If it keeps coming back over several days, write down what was happening each time.

Is the Seven of Pentacles a yes or a no?

In modern yes or no readings, the Seven of Pentacles leans yes. Patience points to yes, eventually. Tarot is better at showing the shape of a situation than at handing down verdicts, so if the question really matters, turn it into an open question such as “What do I need to know about this?” and draw again.

Affirmation and journal prompts

Affirmation: I assess my progress with patience and honest attention.

Reversed affirmation: I reconsider commitments when the evidence or my needs change.

Journal prompts:

• What am I growing?
• Is my effort going to the right place?
• What do I need to prune?

What the Seven means in tarot

Seven is assessment, persistence, strategy and temptation. The Sevens stop to ask what is real and what is worth the effort. They test your judgment more than your strength.

Here is how the Seven looks across the four suits:

• Seven of Wands: defense, perseverance, challenge
• Seven of Cups: fantasy, illusion, choices
• Seven of Swords: deception, trickery, strategy
• Seven of Pentacles (this card): patience, long-term planning, assessment

Learning a rank across the suits is one of the fastest ways to learn the Minor Arcana: the number or court rank gives you the shape, and the suit gives you the setting.

The history and art behind the card

In most decks before 1909, the number cards showed only a pattern of suit symbols, the way a playing card does. The Sola Busca deck from late 1400s Italy is the famous exception. Pamela Colman Smith gave every Minor Arcana card a scene with people in it, and that choice is a big reason the Rider-Waite-Smith deck is still the easiest deck for beginners. 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 farmer in this card is the first of three working figures in a row: the Seven shows him pausing in the field, the Eight shows an apprentice carving pentacles at a bench, and the Three, earlier in the suit, shows a skilled mason at work on a church. Reading them together gives a small story about learning a craft. The bush he looks at is also worth noticing: pentacles growing like fruit suggest that money and results are something you grow, not something you grab.

Waite wrote that the young man looks intently at the pentacles as if they were his treasures and that his heart was there. That line is a good key to the card. The work is not finished, the harvest is not in, and he cares deeply about the result. The card does not say whether the crop will be good. It asks you to look honestly at what you have grown so far, and to decide whether to keep tending it or to plant something else.

When A. E. Waite published The Pictorial Key to the Tarot in 1910, he listed these divinatory meanings for the Seven of Pentacles: “These are exceedingly contradictory; in the main, it is a card of money, business, barter; but one reading gives altercation, quarrel, and another innocence, ingenuity, purgation.” Reversed, he gave: “Cause for anxiety regarding money which it may be proposed to lend.” Waite said he was offering “a harmony of their meanings” gathered “from all sources”, which means older fortune-telling lists, not his own reading of the picture. On this site I read the picture first and treat lists like this as history.

A spread for the Seven of Pentacles

Use this spread to review progress.

1. What is growing? The result so far.
2. What needs care? Where to focus.
3. What can I let go? What to prune.

Lay the three cards in a row, read each one on its own first, then read them together as a short story. Write one sentence for each position and one small action you will take.

Common questions

Is the Seven of Pentacles a yes or no card?

Yes, with patience.

What does the Seven of Pentacles mean for career?

Reviewing long-term work.

What does the Seven of Pentacles mean in love?

A slowly growing bond.

Related cards

• Eight of Pentacles: steady work
• The Hermit: the Major Arcana card of reflection
• The Empress: the Major Arcana card of growth

Keep learning

The Seven of Pentacles is part of the lesson Pentacles in my free Tarot for Beginners course. To see the whole suit on one page, go to the suit of Pentacles. To keep walking the suit, read the card before it, Six of Pentacles or the card after it, Eight of Pentacles, or go back to all the card meanings. For the suits and numbers in one place, see The Minor Arcana: suits and numbers made simple. For every card with keywords, affirmations and examples, see my book The Novice’s Guide to Tarot. If you would like a printable cheat sheet for all 78 cards, my 45-page Tarot Workbook is on Etsy.

Sources

• A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (London: Rider, 1910), Part III, sections 1 and 2.
• Pamela Colman Smith and A. E. Waite, the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot (London: Rider, 1909).
• Nicolas Conver, Tarot de Marseille (Marseille, 1760).
• Lauri Mukkala, The Novice’s Guide to Tarot, entry for the Seven of Pentacles.