wherewithal

Etymology

where + withal

noun

1. The ability and means required to accomplish some task.
   I would like to help your project, but I do not have the wherewithal.
   Justice was sold at the tribunals, and the most enormous crimes escaped from punishment, when the criminals had wherewithal to corrupt their judges. 1688, John Dryden, The Life of St Francis Xavier, book II, translation of original by Dominique Bouhours
   Big Council meeting! At the bookshop in twenty minutes. Carfare will be refunded. Can we scrape together the wherewithal? 1954, Edward Eager, Half Magic
   "I just can't imagine," Philip said, "having that kind of self-knowledge, that kind of...wherewithal at fifteen.[…]" 1986, David Leavitt, The Lost Language of Cranes, paperback edition, Penguin, page 67
   […] A single slice of this could leave you supine in front of the Queen's speech without even the wherewithal to reach for the remote control. December 15, 2011, Felicity Cloake, “How to cook the perfect nut roast”, in Guardian
   Although Emma comes to realise she's trapped in a kind of hell, married to a dullard she despises, she lacks the intellectual wherewithal to plot a breakout more sophisticated than consorting with idiots such as Leon and Rodolphe. 2019, John O’Connell, Bowie's Bookshelf
   In political economic terms, the pandemic worked to intensify a development that the decline in the neoliberal order had already set in motion: namely, a conviction that government was the only institution with the wherewithal to address severe economic and social hardship. 2022, Gary Gerstle, chapter 8, in The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order[…], New York: Oxford University Press, Part II. The Neoliberal Order, 1970–2020

adv

1. (archaic) In what way; how.
2. (archaic) By means of which.