The Glossary
Tarot terms, plainly defined.
A working reader's vocabulary. 60 entries · the words you'll hear in a session, in a bio, or in a tarot book, with definitions that don't assume you already know.
A
- Arcana
- Latin for 'mysteries'. The two halves of the tarot deck: the 22 Major Arcana cards (life-stages, archetypes) and the 56 Minor Arcana cards (the daily texture of life).
- Astrology in tarot
- The associations between cards and astrological signs, planets, or houses. The Empress is Venus; The Tower is Mars; and so on.
C
- Court cards
- The 16 face cards · Page, Knight, Queen, King in each of the four suits. Read as people, personalities, or aspects of the self.
- Cups
- Suit associated with water, emotion, intuition, and relationships. The cup-bearer's suit.
- Cut
- Dividing the shuffled deck into stacks before drawing. Traditionally with the non-dominant hand.
- Celtic Cross
- A ten-card spread popularised by A. E. Waite. The most-taught spread in modern tarot.
- Cartomancy
- Reading any playing-card deck for divination. Tarot is one form of cartomancy; ordinary 52-card decks have their own tradition.
- Closed reading
- A reading with a defined question. Most sessions are partly closed and partly open.
- Channelling
- Speaking on behalf of a non-physical source. Not part of standard tarot practice; some readers offer it as a separate service.
- Curse removal
- Charging extra to 'lift' a curse. Almost always a scam. BookTarot prohibits it.
- Card combinations
- How two adjacent cards in a spread modify each other. The Tower next to the Star reads differently than the Tower next to Death.
D
- Deck
- A full set of 78 cards. Tarot readers often have several decks; many keep a favourite.
- Divination
- The practice of seeking insight through structured symbolic systems · tarot, astrology, runes, the I Ching. Tarot is one form among many.
- Daily pull
- A single card drawn at the start of the day to set a frame. The most common solo practice among readers.
E
- Elements
- The four classical elements (fire, water, air, earth) mapped onto the four suits. A spread skewing toward one element suggests that domain is dominant.
F
- Fear-selling
- The unethical practice of making a client afraid so they book more sessions. Removed-from-our-platform offence.
H
- Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn
- Late-19th-century occult society whose members (Waite, Crowley, Mathers) shaped the modern interpretation of tarot.
I
- Inner work
- A broader term covering shadow work, journaling, meditation, and therapy. Tarot is one tool within inner work.
K
- Kabbalah and tarot
- Many modern tarot interpretations map the 22 Major Arcana onto the 22 paths of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. This is a Hermetic-tradition reading; older tarot didn't have it.
M
- Major Arcana
- The 22 trump cards numbered 0 (The Fool) to XXI (The World). Each represents a stage, archetype, or threshold in a life. When the spread skews heavily Major, the situation is read as significant.
- Minor Arcana
- Fifty-six cards in four suits (Cups, Wands, Swords, Pentacles), each suit running Ace through Ten plus four court cards (Page, Knight, Queen, King). These read as the everyday material of a life.
- Marseilles deck
- An older European deck tradition with pip-style Minor Arcana (just the suit symbols, no scenes). The deck Marseille readers prefer to this day.
- Mediumship
- Communication with the deceased. Distinct from tarot, though some readers do both. On BookTarot, mediumship claims are not permitted; tarot reading is the platform's discipline.
N
- Numerology
- Reading the numbers on the cards alongside the symbolism. A spread with three Threes reads differently than a spread with three Tens.
O
- Oracle deck
- A non-tarot deck used for divination, usually with fewer cards, no fixed structure, and an accompanying guidebook. Distinct from tarot, though often used alongside it.
- Open reading
- A reading without a specific question. The reader pulls and interprets whatever surfaces.
P
- Pentacles
- Suit associated with earth, money, work, the body, and material life. Sometimes called Coins or Disks.
- Position
- A fixed slot in a spread that gives a card its context. The same card in the 'past' position reads differently than in the 'outcome' position.
- Pull
- Drawing a card. 'Pulling the top card' is the simplest version.
- Pip cards
- Minor Arcana cards with only the suit symbols, no illustrated scene (think the Ace of Cups showing just a cup). Common in Marseilles-style decks.
- Predictive reading
- A reading framed around what will happen. Less common among ethical readers, who treat the future as responsive to choices rather than fixed.
- Past life
- In tarot, usually treated symbolically rather than literally. A 'past life' reading explores themes that feel inherited or carried over, without making metaphysical claims about reincarnation.
- Psychic reading
- A reading based on the reader's claimed psychic abilities, not necessarily using cards. The term overlaps with tarot in popular usage but is technically different.
Q
- Querent
- The person asking the question, the one being read for. Often the client.
- Querent ethics
- The flip side of tarot ethics · the standards a client holds themselves to. Showing up sober, not asking the reader to predict a third party's choices, not booking the same question every week hoping for a different answer.
R
- Rider-Waite-Smith
- The most widely-used modern tarot deck, illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith and published by William Rider & Son in 1909. Most decks since are descendants.
- Reversed
- A card laid upside-down. Often signals a blocked, weakened, or shadow version of the upright meaning. Some readers choose not to read reversals.
- Reading
- A tarot session. The whole hour, including the shuffle, the spread, the interpretation, and the conversation.
- Reader
- The practitioner doing the reading. On BookTarot, every reader is identity-verified and held to a strict ethics code.
- Reading style
- A reader's approach. Some are predictive, some are reflective. Most modern professional readers lean reflective.
- Reflective reading
- A reading framed around current dynamics, internal patterns, and choices on the table. The dominant approach on BookTarot.
- Reading log
- A reader's notes from past sessions. Many readers keep one for their own learning.
S
- Swords
- Suit associated with air, thought, communication, and conflict. The most analytical suit.
- Spread
- A defined layout of cards where each position carries a meaning. The Celtic Cross, Three-Card, and Year Ahead are common spreads.
- Significator
- A card chosen at the start of a reading to represent the querent. Sometimes drawn, sometimes selected by the reader based on the querent's appearance, sun sign, or temperament.
- Shuffle
- The mixing of the deck before a reading. Method varies wildly · overhand, riffle, the 'cowboy' face-down spread-and-gather.
- Scene cards
- Minor Arcana cards with illustrated scenes (the Rider-Waite-Smith tradition). Most contemporary decks use scene cards.
- Suit
- One of the four Minor Arcana groupings: Cups, Wands, Swords, Pentacles.
- Shadow work
- The practice of looking at disowned, repressed, or unconscious material. Drawn from Jungian psychology. Some tarot readers specialise in it.
- Significator selection
- Choosing the significator card before the reading. Some readers use physical descriptors (King of Pentacles for an older man), some use sun sign, some use intuition.
- Spread structure
- The fixed positions in a spread and what each means. The Celtic Cross has ten; the Three-Card has three.
T
- Thoth deck
- Aleister Crowley and Lady Frieda Harris's deck, completed in 1943. Denser symbolism than Rider-Waite, with the suits renamed Disks instead of Pentacles.
- Three-Card Spread
- Past, present, future. Or situation, action, outcome. Or you, them, the dynamic. Three cards is tarot's workhorse spread.
- Tarot history
- Tarot first appears in 15th-century Italy as a card game (Tarocchi). Its use for divination starts later, in 18th-century France. Most of the symbolism people associate with tarot today is 19th-century Hermetic.
- Trump
- Another name for the Major Arcana cards. From the original Italian card game where these were the trump suit.
- Tarot ethics
- The standards of practice tarot readers hold themselves to: no fear-selling, no medical or legal claims, no curse-removal upsells, consent from any third party being read.
- Tarot for entertainment
- The legal framing in many jurisdictions: tarot readings are for entertainment, personal reflection, and self-exploration, not professional advice.
U
- Upright
- A card facing the right way up when laid · its primary meaning.
W
- Wands
- Suit associated with fire, action, inspiration, and creativity. Sometimes called Rods or Staves.
Y
- Year Ahead spread
- A thirteen-card spread mapping one card per month of the coming year, plus a card for the whole.