A quiet writer vacuous Duchess puts on? (7)
I believe the answer is:
appends
'puts on?' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both to do with communicating as well as being verbs in their -s form.
Maybe you can see a link between them that I can't see?
'a quiet writer vacuous duchess' is the wordplay.
'quiet' becomes 'p' (music symbol for 'piano', ie soft or quiet).
'writer' becomes 'pen' (something which writes).
'vacuous' means to remove the middle letters.
'duchess' with its centre taken out is 'ds'.
'a'+'p'+'pen'+'ds'='APPENDS'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for appends that I've seen before include "Hangs on" , "Adds on to the end" , "Attaches to the end of" .)