The Minor Arcana and Its Four Suits
The 56 Minor Arcana cards are where everyday life shows up. They come in four suits, each linked to an element. Here’s what each suit covers, and how to tell them apart at a glance.
The Minor Arcana are often described as everyday life: conversations, tasks, feelings, small decisions. Most cards show people doing something, which makes them good for practising observation. There are four suits of fourteen cards each: Ace to Ten, then four court cards.
Each suit is linked to an element and an area of life. Wands are Fire: energy, drive and action. Cups are Water: feelings and relationships. Swords are Air: thoughts, words and conflict. Pentacles are Earth: work, money, the body and home. This is the most common pairing in English-language tarot, though a few traditions swap Wands and Swords. We’ll use the common one.
Think of the suit as the room a scene takes place in. The Ten of Pentacles shows a family of three generations under an archway, with dogs, a house and ten coins in the picture: home, family and what lasts. The Ten of Swords shows a figure lying face down with ten blades in their back. Same number, very different room.
To spot a suit, look for the emblem first. Wands are wooden staffs with leaves sprouting from them. Cups are goblets. Swords are blades. Pentacles are gold coins marked with a five-pointed star. Count them and you usually have the number too.
Colours and settings help, but only as hints. In this deck, Wands scenes are often warm and dry, Cups often have water nearby, Swords often have grey skies and wind, and Pentacles often show gardens, fields and buildings. Yet the Four of Swords is a quiet indoor scene, a figure lying on a tomb under a stained-glass window, and the Six of Cups shows children in a village with no water in sight. Settings vary; emblems don’t.
Other decks may redraw the suits completely, or call Pentacles Coins or Disks. If you’re unsure, find the four Aces. Each one shows the emblem on its own, and everything else follows from it.
Your exercise
Practise spotting the suit. For each card, decide: which suit is it, and what does it open? You’ll see straight away if you’re right.
Key takeaways
- 1The Minor Arcana describe everyday life, in four suits of fourteen cards.
- 2Wands–Fire, Cups–Water, Swords–Air and Pentacles–Earth is the common pairing.
- 3The suit is the room: it tells you which area of life a card is likely about.
- 4Find the emblem first; colours and settings are only hints.