Death

Quick answer

The core meaning of Death is The complete end of the old. Upright, it usually points to Endings, transformation, rebirth, inevitable change. Symbolizes the complete clo; reversed, it may suggest Resisting change, stagnation, decay, inability to let go. May indicate clinging .

Card imagery

A skeletal knight in black armor rides slowly forward on a white horse, bearing a black banner with a white rose. Beneath the horse's hooves lie a fallen king, a praying bishop, and an innocent child. Twin towers and a rising sun mark the horizon.

Upright meaning

Endings, transformation, rebirth, inevitable change. Symbolizes the complete close of an old chapter, clearing space for something new to grow.

Reversed meaning

Resisting change, stagnation, decay, inability to let go. May indicate clinging to the past, prolonging pain and blocking entry into a new phase.

Love, Career, Money and Growth

Love

In love, Death points to The complete end of the old. Read it back against how the relationship actually behaves and what you are both choosing.

Career

In career matters, Death points to The complete end of the old. Start by working out which resources you control and what your next move is.

Money

In money matters, Death points to The complete end of the old. Do not treat a symbolic reading as an investment conclusion — go by facts, budget and your own risk tolerance.

Personal growth

For personal growth, Death points to The complete end of the old. Write down the question it raises, then turn that into an action you can actually check.

Yes or No

Upright

No

Reversed

Undecided

This is our own quick read, based on which way the card’s meaning leans. Traditions disagree about individual cards, and an "Undecided" needs to be weighed against the position in the spread and your actual situation rather than taken as a one-word answer.

Waite’s Original Text (1911)

Inner Symbolism (original)

The veil or mask of life is perpetuated in change, transformation and passage from lower to higher, and this is more fitly represented in the rectified Tarot by one of the apocalyptic visions than by the crude notion of the reaping skeleton. Behind it lies the whole world of ascent in the spirit. The mysterious horseman moves slowly, bearing a black banner emblazoned with the Mystic Rose, which signifies life. Between two pillars on the verge of the horizon there shines the sun of immortality. The horseman carries no visible weapon, but king and child and maiden fall before him, while a prelate with clasped hands awaits his end.

There should be no need to point out that the suggestion of death which I have made in connection with the previous card is, of course, to be understood mystically, but this is not the case in the present instance. The natural transit of man to the next stage of his being either is or may be one form of his progress, but the exotic and almost unknown entrance, while still in this life, into the state of mystical death is a change in the form of consciousness and the passage into a state to which ordinary death is neither the path nor gate. The existing occult explanations of the 13th card are, on the whole, better than usual, rebirth, creation, destination, renewal, and the rest.

Original Upright Meaning

End, mortality, destruction, corruption; also, for a man, the loss of a benefactor; for a woman, many contrarieties; for a maid, failure of marriage projects.

Original Reversed Meaning

Inertia, sleep, lethargy, petrifaction, somnambulism; hope destroyed.

Quoted from A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911), illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith. The text is in the public domain.