An appeal to wipe the floor with, say, synthetic fabric (7)
I believe the answer is:
acrylic
'synthetic fabric' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'an appeal to wipe the floor with' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'an' could be 'i' (Roman numeral for one) and 'i' is found within the answer.
'appeal' could be 'cry' (as in a cry for help) and 'cry' is found within the answer.
This may be the basis of clue (or it may be nonsense).
'say' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for acrylic that I've seen before include "Synthetic fabric" , "Textile fibre - icy Carl (anag)" , "Type of paint or textile fibre" , "Synthetic resin or fibre used for textiles" , "Type of twenty Dn" .)