Three of Swords definitions

Rider-Waite: 3 of Swords

Three swords piercing a heart; cloud and rain behind.

Removal, absence, delay, division, rupture, dispersion, and all that the design signifies naturally, being too simple and obvious to call for specific enumeration.

Additional Meanings: For a woman, the flight of her lover.

Reversed Card meanings

Mental alienation, error, loss, distraction, disorder, confusion.

Additional Meanings: A meeting with one whom the Querent has compromised; also a nun.

Book of Thoth: Sorrow - Three of Swords

The idea of division, of mutability, the idea of the airy quality of things, manifests itself in the Three of Swords, the Lord of Sorrow. Here one is reminded of the darkness of Binah, of the mourning of Isis; but this is not any vulgar sorrow dependent upon any individual disappointment or discontent. It is Weltschmerz, the universal sorrow; it is the quality of melancholy.

The 3 Swords denote sorrow and breakups.

More information

Golden Dawn - Lord of Sorrow

Sorrow of a deep and brooding nature; the joy and gaiety that attends the release from this sorrow.

Mathers: 3 of Swords

Nun, Separation, Removal, Rupture, Quarrel.

Reversed Card meanings

Error, Confusion, Misrule, Disorder.

Etteilla: Three of Swords

Estrangement, Departure, Absence, Gap, Dispersion, Remote, Delay. Scorn, Repugnance, Aversion, Hate, Disgust, Horror. Incompatibility, Annoyance, Opposition, Unsociableness, Misanthropy, Rudeness. Separation, Division, Rupture, Antipathy, Part, Cut.

Reversed Card meanings

Distraction, Insanity, Delerium, Mental Alienation, Absent-Mindedness, Crazy Behavior. Error, Miscalculation, Loss, Detour, Gap, Dispersion.

Thierens: 3 of Swords

TRADITION

Departure, absence, rupture, delay, division, removal, being-far-away. Also aversion, hatred, disgust, etc. Contrarieties, opposition, unsociable qualities, gruffness, separation, etc. Reversed: Mental worries, troubles and even alienation. Error, mistake, loss. A nun.

THEORY

The element of Earth on the Third house acts in the way of the mind and mental processes, and must appear as 'troubles,' etc., because it gives the feeling of the mind being burdened, which might easily go as far as oppression. If the burden becomes too heavy, either the body or the soul may suffer severely, and pain, affliction or mental aberration may ensue. This card must generally mean bad news too, the message which brings news of the affliction. It may be a corrective to a too easy and volatile imagination. It will in most cases denote some sickness, as a result of the pressure or oppressed feeling in the mind or in circumstances in general. It may be the result of worrying. The house of Gemini also suggests some suffering on account of distance, separateness, being far from one other. And the oppressed mind, which cannot have its way, may easily denote the spiritual condition of a nun or some one who takes refuge within the precincts of a monastery. In this case, however, the motives are not of the more elevated or exalted order: there is spitefulness, vexation, bitterness on account of unrealised hopes, want of idealism. So this does not indicate the idealistic type of monasticism. The card typifies the worries of the lesser sort of mind, also small talk, evil thought, the wrestling of the inferior mind with matter and all that may be expected from it.

CONCLUSION

Oppression, worries, being burdened, baffled hopes, troubles, tendency to separateness, rupture and seclusion, pessimism. Removal, absence, delay. Small talk, bitter and evil thought, sickness; in bad cases alienation. Error of judgment, wrong opinion, hatred, aversion, etc. In general: affliction. Scheming, but not in a good sense.