Academic companion probing note before violent rally (9)
I believe the answer is:
scholarly
'academic' is the definition.
('scholarly' can be similar in meaning to 'academic')
'companion probing note before violent rally' is the wordplay.
'companion' becomes 'ch' (I've seen this in other clues).
'probing' indicates putting letters inside (probe can mean to make a hole in).
'note' becomes 'so' (musical note**).
'before' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'violent' indicates an anagram.
'rally' with letters rearranged gives 'larly'.
'so'+'larly'='solarly'
'ch' placed into 'solarly' is 'SCHOLARLY'.
(Other definitions for scholarly that I've seen before include "Involving serious academic study" , "Learned, academic" , "in academic style?" , "Erudite" .)