King of Swords
Thought: Mastery
Quick answer
The core meaning of King of Swords is Mastery in the realm of Thought. Upright, it usually points to Whatsoever arises out of the idea of judgment and all its connections—power, com; reversed, it may suggest Cruelty, perversity, barbarity, perfidy, evil intention.
Card imagery
He sits in judgment, holding the unsheathed sign of his suit. He recalls, of course, the conventional Symbol of Justice in the Trumps Major, and he may represent this virtue, but he is rather the power of life and death, in virtue of his office.
Upright meaning
Upright keywords: Thought: Mastery. Waite gives the upright divinatory meaning as: Whatsoever arises out of the idea of judgment and all its connections—power, command, authority, militant intelligence, law, offices of the crown, and so forth.
Reversed meaning
Reversed keywords: Thought: Mastery (blocked). Waite gives the reversed divinatory meaning as: Cruelty, perversity, barbarity, perfidy, evil intention.
Love, Career, Money and Growth
Love
In love, King of Swords tends to show up as conversation, boundaries, misreadings, and the truth that needs saying. Upright it usually means logic, rules, and objective decision-making; reversed it tends to suggest cold control, abusing authority, or reasoning with no regard for reality.
Career
In your career, King of Swords tends to show up as how decisions get made, how people talk, how competition and problems are handled. Test "logic, rules, and objective decision-making" against the real state of your project, your responsibilities and what has actually been said.
Money
On money, King of Swords is a reminder about checking the information, the terms and the risk before anxiety drives the call. It stands for logic, rules, and objective decision-making, but it is no substitute for a budget, a contract and a risk assessment.
Personal growth
For self-enquiry, King of Swords points at turning circular thinking into one clear judgement or one clear question. Make the decision criteria public, and invite one stakeholder to argue the other side.
Yes or No
Upright
Undecided
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 lawyer, senator, doctor. Reversed: A bad man; also a caution to put an end to a ruinous lawsuit.
Quoted from A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911), illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith. The text is in the public domain.