1. Tarot
2. Card meanings
3. Knight of Cups

Minor Arcana · Cups

Knight of Cups

• arrival
• approach
• invitation
• proposition

Upright meaning

Arrival and invitation: a proposition or a gracious approach. Waite calls him a dreamer, graceful but not warlike.

Reversed meaning

Reversed, Waite notes artifice and subtlety. A prompt to look at an offer carefully before accepting.

• subtlety
• artifice

Symbolism

A knight rides quietly, wearing a winged helmet, holding a cup before him.

Group

Minor Arcana · Cups

Element, astrology

Not given by Waite, so we give none

Source

Our own plain-English summary of A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (London: Rider, 1911), Part III §2 (The Lesser Arcana). The keywords are Waite’s own words. Waite’s fortune-telling lists also contain harsher terms; we keep to the reflective readings he gives and never state an event as certain.

Tarot is a tool for reflection, not a prediction of fixed outcomes. This is not medical, legal or financial advice.