An attractive detective, on the quiet? (4)
I believe the answer is:
dish
'an attractive' is the definition.
I can't tell whether this definition defines the answer.
'detective on the quiet?' is the wordplay.
'detective' becomes 'di' (Detective Inspector abbreviation).
'on' means one lot of letters go next to another (in a down clue, letters appear on others).
'the quiet?' becomes 'sh' (both can be said to tell someone to be quiet).
'di'+'sh'='DISH'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for dish that I've seen before include "Container for serving food" , "Lovely" , "Gorgeous person - plate" , "(Food for) serving plate" , "Bowl-shaped aerial; utterly destroy (colloq.)" .)