In love
In a relationship, Tiwaz speaks of loyalty and kept promises: committing with full knowledge, honestly and without empty promises.
Rune
Tiwaz: rune meaning
Tiwaz is the rune of just courage: keeping your word and acting on your principles, even when it costs.
- courage
- integrity
- commitment
The essentials
Tiwaz at a glance
For you, Tiwaz invites you to check that your actions follow your principles, and to own a hard choice rather than put it off.
A strength
A sincere commitment: keeping your word, defending what seems right, and accepting the price of your choices.
Something to watch
Integrity turns into stiffness when it ignores the people concerned, or becomes judgment.
- Reversed
- Can also be read reversed
- Family
- Tiwaz’s aett
The meaning of Tiwaz
Tiwaz bears the name of a god whom the Scandinavian sources call Týr, linked to justice and the oath. The modern reading keeps the idea of an arrow pointing upward: a will directed toward a clear goal.
The rune speaks of courage and loyalty. It puts forward decisions that call for constancy: keeping a commitment, restoring a truth, defending a position that seems right to you. This integrity is not harsh when it stays attentive to others.
Its shadow is intransigence: confusing firmness with hardness, or fighting to be right rather than to serve a cause.
Tiwaz in your life
At work
In professional life, the rune underlines integrity, a sense of fairness, and the courage to defend a decision grounded in facts.
Draw Tiwaz or another rune
One rune for advice, three to read a situation: the interpretation starts with what the reading means for you.
Free, no account · nothing is sent · no predictions
Tiwaz reversed
Reversed, Tiwaz is read as courage that falters or integrity that hardens: a commitment left a dead letter, or a position that is too rigid.
The divinatory meanings of the runes are a modern reading: take them as lines of reflection, not as answers.
What the ancient sources say
The reconstructed name, *tīwaz, designates the god Tīwaz, whom the Scandinavian sources know as Týr. The divinatory meaning of Tiwaz, courage and integrity, is a modern reading that extends this divine figure. The text stays with this meaning of the name and with a reading of advice, outside any political or identity symbolism.
Reflecting on Tiwaz
A question
What commitment do you want to honor, even if it takes effort on your part?
A gesture
Keep a promise you have set aside before the end of the week, or say frankly that you cannot keep it.
How is it built?
- Glyph
- ᛏ (U+16CF)
- Reconstructed name
- *tīwaz
- Meaning of the name
- the god Tīwaz (Týr)
- Sound
- t
- Position
- 17th rune of the futhark, 1st in Tiwaz’s aett
Where the sources disagree
- Reversed reading (merkstave): A modern practice with no basis in the ancient sources: offered as an option, unchecked by default, and presented as modern.
Sources
- Wikipedia (English), “Elder Futhark,” read on October 15, 2026: table of the 24 runes, reconstructed Proto-Germanic names (asterisk), meanings, aett.
- Unicode, Runic block (U+16A0–U+16FF), character names (Python’s Unicode database).
- Wikipedia (English), “Rune poem,” read on October 15, 2026: Anglo-Saxon poem (composed around the 7th century, Cotton Otho B.x manuscript destroyed in 1731, Hickes’s copy, 1705), Norwegian poem (17th-century copy of a 13th-century manuscript) and Icelandic poem (manuscripts from around 1500), the last two on the 16 runes of the Younger Futhark.
Frequently asked questions about Tiwaz
What does the rune Tiwaz mean?
Tiwaz means courage and integrity: keeping your word and acting on your principles. Its ancient name designates the god Tīwaz, called Týr in the Scandinavian sources.
What does Tiwaz mean reversed?
If you turn runes upside down, a modern choice, Tiwaz evokes courage that hesitates or integrity that is too hard: a position to soften without betraying your values.
Nearby runes