Abandoned lads out of hand, many times over (1,12)

I believe the answer is:

a thousandfold

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'many times over' is the definition.
I don't know anything about this answer so I cannot judge whether this works.

'abandoned lads out of hand' is the wordplay.
'abandoned' indicates anagramming the letters (the original order is abandoned).
'lads'+'out'+'of'+'hand'='ladsoutofhand'
'ladsoutofhand' anagrammed gives 'A THOUSANDFOLD'.

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(Another definition for a thousandfold that I've seen is " masses?".)

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

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