Queen of Swords

WidowhoodAbsenceSterilityMourning

Upright

Widowhood, female sadness and embarrassment, absence, sterility, mourning, privation, separation.

Reversed

Malice, bigotry, artifice, prudery, bale, deceit.

A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911), Part III §2

The picture

Her right hand raises the weapon vertically and the hilt rests on an arm of her royal chair; the left hand is extended, the arm raised; her countenance is severe but chastened; it suggests familiarity with sorrow. It does not represent mercy, and, her sword notwithstanding, she is scarcely a symbol of power.

A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911), Part III §2

Older readings

A widow. Reversed: A bad woman, with ill-will towards the Querent.

A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911), Part III §4. Waite collected these and says they often disagree with the main meanings.

Waite wrote in 1911 and some of his meanings show it. Tarot is a tradition of reflection, not a prediction, and no card decides anything for you.