Tarot glossary: the key terms from A to Z

When you read about tarot, you come across words that nobody explains: arcana, significator, jumper, trump. This glossary gathers the terms you’ll encounter on tarotlicht.de and in most books, in alphabetical order and each in a few sentences. It doesn’t replace an article, but it helps when you stumble over a word in the middle of reading and quickly want to know what it means.

Arcana: Latin for “secrets”; the singular is arcanum. The umbrella term for the two parts of the tarot deck: the 22 Major Arcana and the 56 Minor Arcana.
Card of the day: A single card that you draw in the morning to give you a perspective on the day. The simplest spread and the best way to get to know the 78 cards bit by bit.
Celtic Cross: The best-known large spread, with ten positions: situation, challenge, foundation, past, possibilities, near future, self-image, surroundings, hopes and fears, outcome. Intended for tangled questions and not something for your first day.
Court cards: The 16 person cards of the Minor Arcana: Page, Knight, Queen and King in every suit. They show roles and levels of maturity and can be read as a part of you or as a person in your life.
Cups: The suit of Water. It stands for feelings, relationships, intuition and connection. In other decks also called Chalices or Goblets.
Cut: After shuffling, splitting the pile at any point you like and putting the bottom half on top. With physical cards, this is the moment when the order is finally fixed; online, its equivalent is stopping the reel.
Decision (spread): Spread for choosing between two paths. The cards show what each path brings with it and what you yourself bring to the decision; you still have to make the decision yourself.
Deck: A complete set of 78 tarot cards in a particular design. There are hundreds of decks; most modern ones follow the Waite-Smith tarot in their structure and visual ideas.
Element: One of the four classical basic qualities: Fire, Water, Air and Earth. In tarot, each suit of the Minor Arcana is assigned to an element and thus to an area of life.
Fool: The card numbered 0: a young person at the edge of a cliff with a bundle and a dog. The Fool stands at the beginning of the Major Arcana and embodies setting out, innocence and the risk of the first step.
Fool’s Journey: Reading the 22 Major Arcana as one continuous story: the Fool sets out, meets teachers, trials, collapse and renewal, and arrives at the World. A memory aid, not a doctrine.
Horseshoe (spread): Spread with seven cards laid out in an arc. It leads from the past through the present, obstacles and surroundings to the likely outcome, and is well suited to questions that unfold over time.
Interpretation: What you read from a card or a reading. An interpretation isn’t a fixed meaning from the dictionary but the connection between image, position, question and your situation.
Jumper: A card that jumps out of the deck while you are shuffling or ends up lying crosswise in the pile. Some people put it aside, others read it as an additional hint for the reading. When you draw online, there are no jumpers.
Major Arcana: The 22 numbered picture cards from the Fool (0) to the World (21). They stand for the big themes and turning points of a life and carry particular weight in a reading.
Minor Arcana: The 56 cards in four suits, each suit with ten number cards from the Ace to the Ten and four court cards. They describe the concrete and the everyday, in which the big themes show themselves.
Number cards: The 40 cards of the Minor Arcana from the Ace to the Ten, ten in each suit. In the Waite-Smith tarot they all show a scene, which sets them apart from older decks.
Pentacles: The suit of Earth. It stands for the body, work, money, possessions and everything tangible. In the Waite-Smith tarot they are drawn as pentacles: coins bearing a five-pointed star.
Position: A place within a spread that has its own meaning, such as “Obstacle” or “Advice”. The same card reads differently depending on its position; card and position together make the statement.
Randomness: When you draw cards online on tarotlicht.de, the randomness is generated directly in your browser, at the moment you press; nothing is fixed beforehand or saved afterwards. Randomness is the reason a card can surprise you.
Reading: The whole process and its result: the question, the cards drawn in their spread and the interpretation. Some people also call it a “spread” or a “layout”.
Reel: The drawing mechanism on tarotlicht.de: a moving arc of face-down cards that you stop with a press. The moment you press fixes the card; the animation afterwards changes nothing. Alternatively, you choose a card from the circle.
Relationship (spread): Spread with positions for you, the other person and what lies between you. It doesn’t ask what the other person feels, but what you bring to the connection and what the connection needs.
Reversed: A card that lies upside down in front of you. It can be read as a blocked, excessive or inward-turned form of its upright meaning. Not compulsory; on tarotlicht.de you can choose it before drawing.
Significator: A card deliberately chosen before the reading to represent the person asking, usually a court card. Traditionally common in the Celtic Cross, but often left out today because it takes one card out of the deck.
Spread: A fixed pattern in which cards are laid out, with each position asking a question of its own. On tarotlicht.de there are eight spreads to choose from.
Suit: One of the four groups of the Minor Arcana: Wands, Cups, Swords, Pentacles. The term comes from playing cards, but here it has nothing to do with red or black; it simply means the series.
Swords: The suit of Air. It stands for thinking, language, conflicts, decisions and truth. The Swords cards contain the most painful images in the deck, because thoughts can wound.
Tarot: A set of 78 picture cards that emerged in northern Italy in the 15th century as a card game and has also been used for interpretation since the 18th century. Today it is above all a tool for self-reflection. You can find out more in our history series.
Tarot de Marseille: The classic deck type from France, whose form became established in the 17th and 18th centuries. The number cards show only the symbols in an ordered arrangement, with no scenes; the Major Arcana are kept in clear, flat colours. Still widespread in France and Italy today.
Three Cards (spread): The most versatile small spread. Three positions, traditionally past, present and future; situation, obstacle and advice, or body, heart and head, work just as well.
Trump: Originally the game term for the 22 picture cards that beat all the suit cards in tarot card games. In tarot as used for readings, “trump” is another word for a card of the Major Arcana.
Upright: A card that lies the right way round in front of you, with its head at the top. The basic meaning of every card refers to the upright position; its counterpart is “reversed”.
Visconti-Sforza tarot: The oldest surviving tarot cards, hand-painted around 1450 for the Dukes of Milan. Lavish cards with gold backgrounds, which show that tarot began as a courtly game.
Waite-Smith tarot: The deck published in London in 1909, designed by Arthur Edward Waite and drawn by Pamela Colman Smith. The first widely available deck with scenes on all the number cards, and still the standard for learning today. The images are in the public domain; tarotlicht.de uses them in the card dictionary and for drawing cards.
Wands: The suit of Fire. It stands for drive, will, projects, passion and vigour. In other decks also called Sceptres or Clubs.
Year Ahead (spread): Spread with twelve cards in a circle, one for each month, often supplemented by a card in the centre for the theme of the year. Popular for birthdays or the turn of the year.
Yes or No (spread): Spread for closed questions. You draw one card or a few, which give a tendency; more important than the yes or no is the image that comes with it, showing you why.