About five eels seen swimming in short break (9)
I believe the answer is:
elevenses
'short break' is the definition.
'elevenses' can be an answer for 'break' (I've seen this before). I am not sure about the 'short' bit.
'about five eels seen swimming' is the wordplay.
'about' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'five' becomes 'V' (Roman numeral).
'swimming' indicates anagramming the letters (letters swim around into a new order).
'eels'+'seen'='eelsseen'
'eelsseen' with letters rearranged gives 'eleenses'.
'v' inserted into 'eleenses' is 'ELEVENSES'.
'in' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for elevenses that I've seen before include "Coffee time?" , "Mid-morning break" , "Mid-morning refreshment" , "Soccer teams" , "tenses found immediately before this?" .)