Upright
Conflict, loss or difficulty. The fives are where the suit hurts. Here it concerns a decision, a conflict or something you are working out.
Swords · minor arcana · Air
Five of Swords
Reversed
Recovery beginning, or difficulty being avoided rather than faced. Again, in the domain of thought, conflict and truth.
How this card is built
The Five of Swords sits at the intersection of two things. The suit of Swords covers thought, conflict and truth, carried by the element of Air.
The number places it at disruption — the structure is tested. Put those together and you have the meaning — which is why the minor arcana can be reasoned through rather than memorised.
The image
What is on the card
In the Waite-Smith deck the Five of Swords shows the suit repeated 5 times within the imagery of swords. The number of objects on the card is the fastest way to read it.
Every detail in the Waite-Smith deck was placed deliberately by Pamela Colman Smith in 1909, and reading the picture usually gets you further than reading a keyword list. Notice what the figure is doing, where they are looking, and what is behind them.
Five of Swords in love, work and health
In love
In a relationship context: conflict, loss or difficulty. The fives are where the suit hurts. Carried by thought, conflict and truth, that plays out through what is being said and thought.
In career and money
At work: conflict, loss or difficulty. The fives are where the suit hurts. The suit points the question at thought, conflict and truth.
In health
For health, read the suit first: mental strain, sleep and worry.
Reading it in a spread
A card means different things by position. In a past-present-future layout, Five of Swords in the past describes something already worked through; in the future it describes a direction rather than a fixed outcome.
Read it against its neighbours rather than alone. Two cards from the same suit intensify each other; a major arcana beside a minor tells you the situation is larger than the everyday.