Knight of Pentacles

Knight of Pentacles upright meaning

Doing what you said you would, slowly and completely.

The Knight of Pentacles is the least glamorous card in the deck, and the one you would most want on your side. Waite describes him riding a slow, enduring, heavy horse, and says his own look matches it. In Smith's drawing the horse stands still in front of a plowed field. He is not charging anywhere. He means to do the thing, methodically, for as long as it takes, and to finish it. Waite's meanings were usefulness, interest, responsibility, and rectitude, all of it in ordinary, outward life. Among his extras were a useful man and useful discoveries. In readings he points to reliable progress, routines that work, and follow-through on something already begun. As a person he is dependable, patient, hard-working, and sometimes dull, and the card is affectionate about all of it. His advice is usually about pace. The thing you are trying to speed up probably cannot be sped up. The version that gets finished is the one done at a speed you can keep. He is the answer to most situations where the enthusiasm has run out and the work remains.

Knight of Pentacles reversed meaning

Stagnation, or reliability that has stopped moving.

Reversed, the Knight of Pentacles stops entirely. Waite's reversed meanings were inertia, idleness, rest of the wrong kind, and stagnation, along with placidity, discouragement, and carelessness. Among his extras was a brave man out of work. The most common reading is a routine that was working and has become the whole of life. The effort goes on from habit, long after it stopped producing anything. The horse already stood still upright. Reversed, it has more or less taken root. The second reading is stubbornness, the shadow of his best quality. Reliability becomes an inability to change course. Thoroughness becomes a reason never to deliver. Caution becomes a refusal to take any risk, including the ones clearly worth taking. A third version is boredom, in a job or a relationship that works fine and has stopped holding anything. Read it carefully. The situation is usually not broken, which is why it can last for years.

A reversal is rarely the upright card's opposite. Reversed tarot cards covers the four conditions a reversal usually describes, and how to tell which one a spread is asking for. Every card's reversed meaning sits beside its upright one on reversed tarot card meanings.

Knight of Pentacles in Waite's 1910 key

The meanings above are Reflecta's reading. These are the ones A. E. Waite gave in The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910), the guide he wrote for the deck Pamela Colman Smith drew. He wrote them for fortune-telling, a use tarot took on centuries after it began as a card game in fifteenth-century Italy. Some of his words are blunt, and none of them can tell you what will happen.

Upright

Utility, serviceableness, interest, responsibility, rectitude, all on the normal and external plane.

Reversed

Inertia, idleness, repose of that kind, stagnation; also placidity, discouragement, carelessness.

Symbolism in the card

The slow, heavy horse

Waite describes a slow, enduring, heavy horse, and says the rider's own look matches it. In Smith's drawing it stands still. The card is about steady intention, more than momentum.

The coin he holds and does not look at

Waite notes that he shows his symbol, and does not look into it. The Page studies the coin. The Knight already knows what it is for, and carries it.

The plowed field behind him

The ground behind him has been turned and readied. Whatever he sets out to do follows a season of plain preparation nobody watched.

Knight of Pentacles in love and relationships

Upright. A steady, reliable partner or relationship. Undramatic and dependable, and it favors consistency over grand gestures. Slow to start, and lasting once it does.

Reversed. A relationship that has become routine to the point of sleep, or someone so cautious that nothing moves forward. It can also mean stubbornness that blocks any change.

Knight of Pentacles in career and work

Upright. Reliable progress, a methodical project, or being the person who finishes things. Waite's meanings included usefulness and responsibility. It favors the long, steady approach over the sprint.

Reversed. A job that has become pure routine, or work going on from habit past the point of use. Waite's extras for the reversal included a capable person out of work.

Knight of Pentacles in money

Upright. Steady saving, a plain plan kept to, and money habits kept up over years. Unexciting, and the card treats that as a strength.

Reversed. Money that is going nowhere, or caution so complete that nothing moves. Waite's reversal included carelessness. Ask what the caution protects, and what it costs.

Knight of Pentacles as feelings

Upright. Steady and committed. The card shows care without drama, the kind that is still there a year later. In this suit, that is the strongest statement there is.

Reversed. The card shows comfort sliding into complacency, or caution that stops anything happening. The feelings may be real, while nothing is done with them.

Is Knight of Pentacles a yes or a no?

Upright, it leans yes. Reversed, it leans no.

Upright it leans toward a dependable yes, with a pace attached. The card shows something that takes longer than you want, and gets finished. Reversed it leans no. Usually nothing is moving at all, or thoroughness has become a reason not to start.

Every card's leaning in one table, upright and reversed, is on yes or no tarot, along with what a maybe is asking you to do.

Knight of Pentacles card combinations

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Knight of Pentacles and Eight of Pentacles

Diligence twice. A strong pairing for anything that needs sustained work. Both the skill and the temperament to keep going are there.

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Knight of Pentacles and The Chariot

Two approaches to progress, at opposite speeds. Usually the reading is about which one the situation needs. It is more often the slow one than people want.

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Knight of Pentacles and Seven of Pentacles

Steady work, and the wait for its return. Together they ask for patience. The current approach may be sound, even though nothing shows yet.

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Knight of Pentacles and The Fool

A pointed contrast between the leap and the plod. The pairing usually asks whether this calls for nerve or for follow-through. Rarely both.

Every pairing on this site, Knight of Pentacles's included, is collected on tarot card combinations.