King of Pentacles

Quick answer

The core meaning of King of Pentacles is Mastery in the realm of Material. Upright, it usually points to Valor, intelligence, business, mathematical gifts, and success in these paths; reversed, it may suggest Vice, weakness, perversity, peril.

Card imagery

The face of this figure is dark, suggesting courage, and the bull's head should be noted as a recurrent symbol on the throne. The sign of this suit is represented throughout as engraved with the pentigram, typifying the correspondence of the four elements in human nature and that by which they may be governed. In old Tarot packs this suit represented money. The consensus of divinatory meanings is on the side of change, as the cards do not deal especially with questions of money.

Upright meaning

Upright keywords: Material: Mastery. Waite gives the upright divinatory meaning as: Valor, intelligence, business, mathematical gifts, and success in these paths.

Reversed meaning

Reversed keywords: Material: Mastery (blocked). Waite gives the reversed divinatory meaning as: Vice, weakness, perversity, peril.

Love, Career, Money and Growth

Love

In love, King of Pentacles tends to show up as reliability, everyday care, and how a shared life is arranged. Upright it usually means steady management, long-term results, and leadership over resources; reversed it tends to suggest greed, controlling resources, or equating value with money alone.

Career

In your career, King of Pentacles tends to show up as skill, process, steady income, and results that accumulate. Test "steady management, long-term results, and leadership over resources" against the real state of your project, your responsibilities and what has actually been said.

Money

On money, King of Pentacles is a reminder about budgeting, saving, return on what you put in, and a sense of security. It stands for steady management, long-term results, and leadership over resources, but it is no substitute for a budget, a contract and a risk assessment.

Personal growth

For self-enquiry, King of Pentacles points at turning an idea into a habit you can repeat and resources that actually exist. Make the decision criteria public, and invite one stakeholder to argue the other side.

Yes or No

Upright

Yes

Reversed

No

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)

Additional Meaning

A rather dark man, a merchant, master, professor. Reversed: An old and vicious man.

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