Like the other tarot suits, it contains fourteen cards: ace (one), two through ten, page, knight, queen and king.

Occultists claim that the suit represents the Second Estate (The Nobles).

While tarot cards are used throughout much of Europe to play tarot card games,[1] in English-speaking countries, where the games are largely unknown, tarot cards came much later to be utilized primarily for divinatory purposes.

[1] In divination, the suit of swords is associated with masculinity and intellect, but also sorrow and misfortune.

Etteilla and Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers equated Swords to the suit of Spades in the French pack.