Merseyside town, origin of grisly pirate (7)
I believe the answer is:
bootleg
'pirate' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both to do with ownership as well as being verbs in their base form.
Maybe there's a link between them I don't understand?
'merseyside town origin of grisly' is the wordplay.
'merseyside town' becomes 'Bootle' (town in Merseyside, North West England).
'origin of' suggests taking the first letters.
The first letter of 'grisly' is 'g'.
'bootle'+'g'='BOOTLEG'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for bootleg that I've seen before include "Type of jeans" , "Sell illicit alcohol" , "Smuggled" , "Smuggle liquor" , "Illicit (liquor?)" .)