After ignoring the first letter, desolate people ultimately accept dispossession (9)

'dispossession' is the definition.
Both the definition and answer are singular nouns.
Maybe you can see an association between them that I can't see?

'after ignoring the first letter desolate people ultimately accept' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'the' could be 't' (the is pronounced as a 't' sound in some dialects) and 't' is located in the answer.
'letter' could be 'en' (I've seen this in other clues) and 'en' is located in the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).

Can you help me to learn more?