Tarot card meanings › Cups
Five of Cups Tarot Card Meaning
The Five of Cups tarot card means loss, regret and grief. Loss, but not everything is gone.
Upright
- Loss
- regret
- grief
Reversed
- Acceptance
- moving on
- forgiveness
Yes or no
No
The Five of Cups is one of the 14 cards in the suit of Cups. Cups are the suit of water: feelings, love, friendship and intuition.
What the card shows
A figure in a black cloak stands with head bowed over three spilled cups. Two full cups stand behind, unseen. A bridge crosses a river to a castle in the distance.
This is the card as drawn by Pamela Colman Smith for the 1909 Rider-Waite-Smith deck, which is in the public domain.
Upright meaning
The Five of Cups is read as grief and regret. Something has been lost and it hurts. The two cups still standing are the card's reminder that not everything is gone.
Five of Cups reversed
Reversed, it is read as coming to terms with a loss, forgiving, and turning toward what remains.
Yes or no?
In a yes or no question, the Five of Cups is usually read as a no, often in the sense of not now or not this way. Readers differ on some cards, so treat this as one common reading. You can ask a yes or no question and draw a card for it.
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More Cups cards
Ace of CupsTwo of CupsThree of CupsFour of CupsSix of CupsSeven of CupsEight of CupsNine of CupsTen of CupsPage of CupsKnight of CupsQueen of CupsKing of Cups
‹ Four of CupsAll 78 cardsSix of Cups ›
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