The World is read for completion, and the useful work in interpreting it lies in distinguishing which kind.
The strongest reading is integration: the parts of a situation, or of a person, functioning together rather than being managed separately. This follows the four creatures, which are four distinct things arranged around one centre without being merged.
The second reading is arrival, a cycle finished, an obligation discharged, a place reached, and it is the reading most querents want. It is also the one most likely to be premature. The card frequently turns up when something is nearly done, and reading it as "finished" can cause a querent to stop short.
The third reading, less common, is the wreath as a boundary. A world is a bounded thing, and a card that shows completion also shows a limit. Readers who work with the sequence often take this as the point at which a system that has served its purpose becomes a container, which is why the Fool follows it in most modern arrangements.
Waite's reversed meanings run to inertia and a place unreached rather than a completion undone, which again is not a simple negation. Readers who do not use reversals read the same range from context.
Whatever else it does, this card is worth reading slowly. It is the only one in the deck whose plain meaning is that there is nothing further to do, and that is an unusual thing for a divinatory system to say. Most oracles are in the business of describing what happens next. This one, at the top of its sequence, declines.