King of Pentacles Tarot Card Meaning

King of Pentacles upright

A king sits on a throne carved with a bull's head, holding a pentacle engraved with a pentagram. Waite says his face shows courage with a touch of lethargy, and lists valour, realising intelligence, business and mathematical gifts — with success in these. Build steadily on what works.

King of Pentacles reversed

Waite reversed gives vice, weakness, ugliness, perversity, corruption and peril. Avoid shortcuts and deals that do not feel clean.

A reversed card (What does Upright / reversed card mean?) is one drawn upside-down.

Is King of Pentacles a yes or no?

Upright: Leans yes. Yes — a solid, practical yes.

Reversed: Reversed, King of Pentacles reads as a gentle no: greed, corruption, weakness.

The yes/no lean is BornClock’s reading convention drawn from the card’s meaning — Waite himself did not assign one.

Symbolism in the King of Pentacles card

What appears in the 1909 Rider–Waite–Smith picture, as Waite describes it:

• Bull's head on the throne — Waite: a recurring symbol
• Pentacle with a pentagram — Waite: the four elements in human nature and how they are governed
• Dark face — Waite: courage, a little lethargic

In Waite’s own words (paraphrased)

Upright: valour, realising intelligence, business and normal intellectual aptitude, mathematical gifts; success in these.

Reversed: vice, weakness, ugliness, perversity, corruption, peril.

Source: A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910, public domain). Some of Waite’s 1910 fortune-telling meanings are old-fashioned; the plain-English reading above is ours.