A couple of conservatives hearing without initial enrolment (9)
I believe the answer is:
accession
'initial enrolment' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both acts as well as being singular nouns.
Maybe you can see a link between them that I don't see?
'a couple of conservatives hearing without' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'a' is found in the answer.
'of' could be 'o' and 'o' is present in the answer.
'conservatives' could be 'cc' (an abbreviation for Conservative written twice) and 'cc' is found in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for accession that I've seen before include "Act of taking up office" , "New item added to a library or museum" .)