Absolute child verges on animal (5)
I believe the answer is:
total
'absolute' is the definition.
(synonyms)
'child verges on animal' is the wordplay.
'child' becomes 'tot' (term for a young child).
'verges on animal' becomes 'al' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'tot'+'al'='TOTAL'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for total that I've seen before include "Whole, complete" , "wreck" , "The whole number" , "Complete, entire amount" , "Aggregate, sum" .)