Minor Arcana
Tarot Card Meanings
The Minor Arcana are 56 suit cards that describe the texture of everyday experience: action, emotion, thought, resources, relationships and the choices inside them.
What are the Minor Arcana?
The Minor Arcana are the 56 suit cards in a standard 78-card tarot deck. They are divided into Wands, Cups, Swords and Pentacles, with each suit containing ten numbered cards plus four court ranks.
Compared with the Major Arcana, Minor Arcana cards are often used to describe more immediate conditions, behaviours and interactions. Hunch treats that distinction as a reading framework, not a rule about fate.
Four lenses for everyday experience.
Wands
Action, energy, initiative, ambition and how momentum is being used.
Cups
Emotion, connection, imagination and how feelings are being held or expressed.
Swords
Thought, language, conflict, decisions and the stories shaping interpretation.
Pentacles
Resources, work, money, body, material conditions and what can be built or maintained.
Use number as a pattern, not a script.
Aces introduce potential; twos compare or balance; threes develop; fours stabilise; fives disrupt; sixes adjust; sevens test; eights intensify or organise; nines approach culmination; tens show a cycle at full load or completion.
Deck traditions differ, so start with the image in front of you. Number patterns help you compare cards without pretending every deck has one fixed dictionary.
Read roles, strategies and social dynamics.
Learning, receiving a message, trying a mode for the first time.
Pursuit, movement and the way energy is being directed.
Internal command, stewardship and a mature way of holding the suit.
External command, responsibility, standards and visible use of the suit.
Read a Minor Arcana card in four passes.
Suit: which domain is foregrounded?
Number or rank: what stage or role appears?
Image: what action, tension or relationship is actually shown?
Reality check: which part matches evidence in your situation?
Minor Arcana basics.
How many Minor Arcana cards are there?
There are 56: 14 cards in each of four suits.
What is the difference between Major and Minor Arcana?
Major Arcana are 22 named trump cards commonly used for broad archetypal themes. Minor Arcana are 56 suit cards commonly used for the more immediate texture of a situation.
What are the four Minor Arcana suits?
Wands, Cups, Swords and Pentacles in the most common modern English naming system.
Are Minor Arcana less important?
No. “Minor” describes the deck division, not the value of the card. In practical readings they often contain the most actionable detail.
Compare the Minor and Major Arcana.
Use both systems together: archetypal context from the Major Arcana and immediate detail from the Minor Arcana.
Explore all Major Arcana ↗