Tarot card meanings › Swords
Ten of Swords Tarot Card Meaning
The Ten of Swords tarot card means a painful ending, hitting bottom and betrayal. A painful ending. The worst has passed.
Upright
- A painful ending
- hitting bottom
- betrayal
Reversed
- Recovery
- the worst is over
- refusing to let it end
Yes or no
No
The Ten of Swords is one of the 14 cards in the suit of Swords. Swords are the suit of air: thought, truth, words and conflict.
What the card shows
A man lies face down on the ground with ten swords in his back. The sky above is black, and a band of gold light shows along the horizon.
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 Ten of Swords is read as rock bottom: a painful, final ending, sometimes a betrayal. It is dramatic, and it is also the end of the matter. The light on the horizon is dawn.
Ten of Swords reversed
Reversed, it is read as getting back up, the worst being behind you, or dragging out an ending.
Yes or no?
In a yes or no question, the Ten of Swords 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 Swords cards
Ace of SwordsTwo of SwordsThree of SwordsFour of SwordsFive of SwordsSix of SwordsSeven of SwordsEight of SwordsNine of SwordsPage of SwordsKnight of SwordsQueen of SwordsKing of Swords
‹ Nine of SwordsAll 78 cardsPage of Swords ›
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