Significator

A significator (from Latin significare, "to signify") is a card chosen at the start of a reading to represent the person or situation the reading is about. In Tarot, a significator is traditionally chosen from the court cards, matched by gender and personality type (a Queen of Cups, say, for a sensitive, empathic woman), or from the Major Arcana card that matches the question's theme. In the Lenormand deck, that role is played by two dedicated cards, "Man" and "Woman" (numbers 28 and 29), and in a Grand Tableau spread, the position of the other cards relative to the significator — closer, farther, on which side — becomes its own layer of meaning: cards to the right of the significator are often read as the future, cards to the left as the past or an influence already at play. Using a significator isn't mandatory — many modern readers skip it and rely on context instead — but for complex spreads involving several people, a relationship reading for instance, it helps keep track of whose story each card is actually telling.