Nine of Swords Tarot Card Meaning

Nine of Swords upright

A woman sits up on her couch in sorrow, swords ranged above her. Waite calls it a card of utter desolation. His list includes failure, delay, deception and disappointment. Talk to someone you trust; worries look smaller in daylight, and practical support helps.

Nine of Swords reversed

Waite reversed gives imprisonment, suspicion, doubt, reasonable fear and shame. Separate the fears that are real from those that are not, and act on the real ones.

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

Is Nine of Swords a yes or no?

Upright: Leans no. No — not while you are this anxious about it. Steady yourself first.

Reversed: Reversed, Nine of Swords reads as a gentle no: doubt, suspicion, reasonable fear.

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

Symbolism in the Nine of Swords card

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

• Woman sitting up on her couch in lament — Waite: a sorrow like no other
• Swords ranged above her — heavy thoughts

In Waite’s own words (paraphrased)

Upright: failure, delay, deception, disappointment, despair (Waite lists graver items too, omitted here).

Reversed: imprisonment, suspicion, doubt, reasonable fear, shame.

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.