Definition of "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.

2011 December 15, 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

Wherewithall shall a yong man cleanse his way? by taking heede thereto according to thy word.

1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], Psalms 119:9

Rich. Northumberland, thou Ladder wherewithall / The mounting Bullingbrooke aſcends my Throne

1595 December 9 (first known performance), William Shakespeare, “The life and death of King Richard the Second”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act V, scene i], page 41, column 2