Crossword Genius

A bad person in charge holds me up at university? (8)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

academic

'university?' is the definition.
(thesaurus)

'a bad person in charge holds me up' is the wordplay.
'bad person' becomes 'cad' (cad can mean a dishonourable person).
'in charge' becomes 'ic' (abbreviation for 'in charge').
'holds' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'up' is a reversal indicator (in down clue: letters go upwards).
'me' written backwards gives 'em'.
'cad'+'ic'='cadic'
'cadic' placed around 'em' is 'cademic'.
'a'+'cademic'='ACADEMIC'

'at' is the link.

(Other definitions for academic that I've seen before include "Unimportant" , "Theoretical or relating to colleges" , "Of theoretical interest, no practical application" , "Scholar - of no practical importance" , "Scholarly; irrelevant" .)

I've seen this clue in The Times.
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