Pips and Trumps

tmle39

Hi everyone! I'm new and I have a question(even though some of you may think this is a really dumb question). What are Pips and Trumps in a Tarot Deck???
Thank you, tmle39
 

SunChariot

The Pips are the Minor Arcana cards (not sure it that includes the Court cards or not). And the Trumps are the Major Arcana cards.

Bar
 

Thirteen

The minor arcana (pips) are the ones with wands, swords, cups and pentacles.

The majors (Trumps) are those first 22 cards from the Fool at 0 to the World at 21.

And often the Courts are also separated out--and called the "courts" and these are the cards with pages, knights, queens and kings.
 

jmd

This is actually linguistically highly interesting, as I was only recently responding to a similar but reversed question to this one, explaining that the 'Major Arcana' are the Trumps or Atouts from I through to XXI and the Fool, and the 'Minor Arcana' are the pips and courts of the other four suits.
 

Fulgour

jmd said:
...the 'Minor Arcana' are the pips and courts of the other four suits.
My research was simple: I looked it up in the dictionary.
"Pips" are numbered cards, and so therefore, it stated,
in a deck of cards, cards 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (not "Ace").

Aces and Courts (Face Cards) are not "Pips" but rather,
they are called the Aces and Courts. Ace being highest.

When the "Tarot" was introduced to Europe, long before
playing cards were copied from it and made fashionable,
the Ace was clearly so named to show that it is special.

It's best to disregard "playing cards" as a later deviation.
 

Fulgour

It should be noted, that in the Tarot there are
four Court Cards, which has always been thus,
but in "playing cards" the Knight lost his horse,
and the Pages (or Valets) were sadly removed.

Some misguided accounts specify wrongly that
Knights were added to the Tarot, with horses,
which is backwards and yet proves Tarot older.
 

tmle39

Thank you

Thank you to all that responded. It is nice to know any question will be answered. i am now clear on the pips and trumps issue. tmle39