Zodiac Compatibility: How We Score Each Sun Sign Pair

How to Read Zodiac Compatibility

Zodiac compatibility by Sun sign starts with a plain question: where do two signs sit on the wheel? Each sign has an element, a mode and a ruling planet. When two signs meet, these traits fit, clash or simply pass each other by. The angle between the signs, called an aspect, ties the picture together.

Each pair of signs has its own page here, with its aspect, elements, modes, rulers and score. Each sign also has a hub that lists its twelve pairs with their scores.

The Seven Aspects Between Sun Signs

A conjunction joins two people of the same sign. They share an element, a mode and a ruler, so they understand each other fast and can copy each other's faults.

A semi-sextile links next-door neighbors, one sign apart. They have nothing basic in common, and old texts say such signs are in aversion: they do not see each other.

A sextile joins signs two signs apart, such as fire with air or earth with water. The elements help each other, and teamwork comes easily.

A square joins signs three signs apart. They share a mode, but their elements clash, so friction comes often. It can push both people to grow or wear them down.

A trine joins signs four signs apart, in the same element. Ease comes almost at once. The danger is that comfort slowly turns into habit.

A quincunx joins signs five signs apart. Like neighbors, they are in aversion and share no element or mode, so each has to learn the other's language on purpose.

An opposition joins signs six signs apart, straight across the wheel. They share a mode, and their elements feed each other. Old astrology saw this axis as the seventh house, the house of marriage and partners.

How the Compatibility Score Works

Every pair gets its score from one open formula, and the table of weights sits on this page. The score starts from a base that each pair shares. Then the aspect adds to it, with the trine and the sextile near the top and the square and the quincunx near the bottom. The elements add more when they match or feed each other, and nothing when they clash.

Two signs with one ruler get a small bonus. Last comes dignity: if a sign's ruler is at home or exalted in the partner's sign, the score rises a little, and if it is in detriment or in fall there, the score drops a little.

What Sun Signs Leave Out

A Sun sign is only one layer of a birth chart. A full comparison of two charts, called synastry, also weighs the Moon, Venus, Mars and the rising sign. The score is a first sketch, and the whole chart is the full picture.

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