Ten of Swords

PainAfflictionTearsSadness

Upright

Whatsoever is intimated by the design; also pain, affliction, tears, sadness, desolation. It is not especially a card of violent death.

Reversed

Advantage, profit, success, favour, but none of these are permanent; also power and authority.

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

The picture

A prostrate figure, pierced by all the swords belonging to the card.

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

Older readings

Followed by Ace and King, imprisonment; for girl or wife, treason on the part of friends. Reversed: Victory and consequent fortune for a soldier in war.

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.