New England's top state officer to change state (4)
I believe the answer is:
melt
'change state' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both related to change as well as being verbs in their base form.
Maybe they are linked in a way I don't understand?
'new england's top state officer' is the wordplay.
'new england's' becomes 'm' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'top' means to remove the first letter.
'state' becomes 'me'.
'officer' becomes 'lt' (abbreviation for lieutenant).
'me' with its first letter taken away is 'e'.
'm'+'e'+'lt'='MELT'
'to' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for melt that I've seen before include "Unfreeze" , "Liquefy with heat" , "Liquefy; become tender" , "Turn to liquid" , "(Of snow) turn to water" .)