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A majority of participants ponder in advance then dance topless (13)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

preponderance

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'a majority' is the definition.
(thesaurus)

'participants ponder in advance then dance topless' is the wordplay.
'participants' becomes 'pre' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'in advance' says to put letters next to each other.
'then' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'topless' means to remove the first letter.
'dance' with its first letter taken away is 'ance'.
'pre'+'ponder'+'ance'='PREPONDERANCE'

'of' acts as a link.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for preponderance that I've seen before include "Greater quantity" , "The lion's share" , "Quality of being greater in number" , "Quality of outweighing other factors etc" , "Superior number" .)

I've seen this clue in the Sydney Morning Herald.
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