Ah! Was taken in and nearly sunk! (5)
I believe the answer is:
awash
'nearly sunk' is the definition.
The answer and definition are not the same part of speech. However, past participle verbs and adjectives can occasionally define each other.
'ah was taken in' is the wordplay.
'taken in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'ah' going around 'was' is 'AWASH'.
'and' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for awash that I've seen before include "Partly under water" , "Level with the water surface" , "With the top just covered with water" , "Crawling" , "not quite under" .)