wherewithal
Syllables: where·with·alUK/ˈwɛə.wɪ.ðɔːl//ˈwɛɚ.wɪ.ðɔl/
wherewithal noun: the ability and means required to accomplish some task.
Noun
wherewithal (countable and uncountable, plural wherewithals)
- 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
- Synonyms:
- means
Adverb
wherewithal (not comparable)
- In what way; how.
- 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, […], →OCLC, Psalms 119:9
- By means of which.
- Rich. Northumberland, thou Ladder wherewithall / The mounting Bullingbrooke aſcends my Throne1595 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...
wherewithal meaning in Urdu and Malayalam
wherewithal in Urdu
- ضروری رقم
wherewithal in Malayalam
- finances, money, cash
- സാമ്പത്തികശേഷി, ആവശ്യമായ ധനം, ശേഷി, വക, വിഭവശേഷി, പണം
Examples of wherewithal in a sentence
- "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:
Synonyms of wherewithal
Forms of wherewithal
| plural | wherewithals |
|---|
Origin of wherewithal
From where- + withal. Originally only an adverb, nominal use since ca. 1800.
Questions about wherewithal
- What does wherewithal mean?
- Wherewithal means the ability and means required to accomplish some task.
- What is wherewithal in Urdu?
- Wherewithal in Urdu is ضروری رقم. See Wherewithal meaning in Urdu.
- How do you use wherewithal in a sentence?
- "I just can't imagine," Philip said, "having that kind of self-knowledge, that kind of...wherewithal at fifteen.[…]"
- What part of speech is wherewithal?
- Wherewithal can be a noun or an adverb.
- How do you pronounce wherewithal?
- Wherewithal is pronounced /ˈwɛə.wɪ.ðɔːl/ (UK).
- What is the plural of wherewithal?
- The plural of wherewithal is wherewithals.
Words near wherewithal in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: wherewithal (page history and authors); wherewithal (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); wherewithal (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-wherewithal.ogg, en-au-wherewithal.ogg.
Cite this entry: “wherewithal.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/wherewithal. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.