Life line
Curves around the base of the thumb
Governs vitality, physical constitution and major changes of circumstance.
Palm reading
The lines, what each is traditionally read as — and the one claim about palms that has been properly tested.
The life line does not predict lifespan
This is the single most common fear people bring to palmistry, and it has been checked. A 1990 study compared the palm lines of the deceased against their age at death and found no relationship at all. A short life line means nothing about how long you live.
The lines
Heart line
Runs across the top of the palm, below the fingers
Governs emotional life, attachment and how you love.
Head line
Runs across the middle of the palm
Governs thinking style, concentration and how you make decisions.
Fate line
Runs vertically up the centre of the palm
Governs career, direction and the degree to which life feels externally shaped.
Sun line
Runs vertically below the ring finger
Governs recognition, creativity and public success.
Marriage lines
Short horizontal lines on the edge below the little finger
Governs significant partnerships.
Money triangle
Formed where the head, fate and life lines intersect
Governs the ability to hold on to resources.
The four hand shapes
Earth hand
Square palm, short fingers
Practical, grounded, physically capable and slow to change course.
Air hand
Square palm, long fingers
Analytical, communicative and comfortable in abstraction.
Water hand
Long palm, long fingers
Sensitive, intuitive, emotionally receptive and easily overloaded.
Fire hand
Long palm, short fingers
Energetic, impulsive, enthusiastic and quick to act.
Shape is classified by palm proportion against finger length, then matched to an element.
Which hand
The usual convention: the non-dominant hand shows inherited disposition, the dominant hand shows what you have made of it. Readers who work with both compare them, and treat the differences as the interesting part.
Where the lines actually come from
The three major creases — life, head and heart — form in the womb by around the twelfth week, as a consequence of how the hand folds. That is why they are stable for life, and why they appear in broadly similar positions on everyone.
Medicine does take one palm feature seriously: a single transverse palmar crease, where the head and heart lines merge into one, occurs more often in some chromosomal conditions. That is a developmental marker, not a fortune, and it is the only established link between palm anatomy and anything else.