Tarot Cards Were Invented for a Card Game
Tarot is a deck used for divination. It began as an ordinary Italian card game and was only later used for fortune-telling.
Tarot is a set of cards used for divination, and also for a family of trick-taking games. The games came first by centuries: tarot decks appear in fifteenth-century Italy as *tarocchi*, an ordinary card game with a fifth suit of trumps, and games like French *tarot* and Austrian *Königrufen* are still played today. Divination began only in the late 1700s, with French occultists who invented an Egyptian origin for the cards. A standard deck has 78 cards, 22 of them trumps.
- A divination deck. *A tarot reading.*
- A card game. *French tarot.*
- Major arcana — the 22 trumps. *The major arcana.*
- Tarocchi — the Italian original. *Tarocchi.*
- Italian — *tarocco*. *The source.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Noun | tarot | Tarot. |
| Compound | tarot card | A tarot card. |
| Italian | tarocchi | Tarocchi. |
| Part | major arcana | The major arcana. |
| Part | minor arcana | The minor arcana. |
- She had a tarot reading.Divination.
- Tarocchi is still played in Italy.Game.
- The deck has 78 cards.Structure.
What a tarot deck contains
- Four suits — cups, coins, swords and batons
- Fourteen cards per suit, including four court cards
- Twenty-two trumps — the major arcana
- The Fool — an unnumbered card outside the sequence
- Seventy-eight cards in total
French *tarot*, from Italian *tarocchi*, plural of *tarocco*, of unknown further origin.
Were tarot cards always used for fortune-telling?
No. They were invented in fifteenth-century Italy for a trick-taking card game. Divination began in the late 1700s.
How many cards are in a tarot deck?
Seventy-eight: fifty-six in four suits plus twenty-two trumps known as the major arcana.