Upright
Authority in this area, applied to the world with confidence. Here it concerns work, money, health or something concrete you are building.
Pentacles · minor arcana · Earth
King of Pentacles
Reversed
Authority misused, or competence undermined by ego. Again, in the domain of money, work and the body.
How this card is built
The King of Pentacles sits at the intersection of two things. The suit of Pentacles covers money, work and the body, carried by the element of Earth.
The number places it at outward mastery — the suit directed and applied. 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 King of Pentacles shows a court figure within the imagery of pentacles. Court cards describe either a person or the way you are behaving in this area.
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.
King of Pentacles in love, work and health
In love
In a relationship context: authority in this area, applied to the world with confidence. Carried by money, work and the body, that plays out through practical circumstances — money, home, time.
In career and money
At work: authority in this area, applied to the world with confidence. The suit points the question at money, work and the body.
In health
For health, read the suit first: the body itself, routine and material conditions.
Reading it in a spread
A card means different things by position. In a past-present-future layout, King of Pentacles 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.