What is an English word that means together a combination of both experience and innate skills?
I thought of the word talent but it conveys much more about skills than experience. I am looking for a word that at once describes the summation of both innate skill/talent as well as whatever (in addition to skill/talent) has been accumulated through experience.
An example sentence for me might be something like this: "The skills and experience of the expert were very significant." But I want to replace the part "skills and experience" with a single word: "The <blank> of the expert was very significant."
This sparked me to also think of the word prowess but I am not sure if the connotation of that word allows it to be used in most common places. It is unusual to describe the "prowess" of an auto mechanic, for example, but I'd still like a single word of this sort for describing experts who are possibly auto mechanics (just as an example).
Is there such a word?
Best Answer
Background is close to what you are looking for:
(from TFD)