1 may be vile possibly in a recent environment (9)
I believe the answer is:
alleviate
'1 may' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are verbs in their base form, I can't understand how one could define the other.
'vile possibly in a recent environment' is the wordplay.
'possibly' is an anagram indicator.
'in' indicates putting letters inside.
'a recent environment' becomes 'alate' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'vile' anagrammed gives 'levi'.
'levi' inserted within 'alate' is 'ALLEVIATE'.
'be' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for alleviate that I've seen before include "Soothe" , "Make better" , "Make less severe, say suffering" , "dull" , "To mollify" .)