African alien hides pain, meeting Scotsman (8)
I believe the answer is:
egyptian
'african' is the definition.
(Egyptian is an example)
'alien hides pain meeting scotsman' is the wordplay.
'alien' becomes 'et' (extra terrestrial).
'hides' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'pain meeting' becomes 'gyp' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'scotsman' becomes 'ian'.
'et' placed around 'gyp' is 'egypt'.
'egypt'+'ian'='EGYPTIAN'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for egyptian that I've seen before include "Pharaoh's nationality?" , "Nationality of a Pharaoh" , "Is Pat eying this son of Cairo, say?" , "ancient language" , "Like a type of goose" .)