Crossword Genius

Ape β€” giant turning up with bone, shortly (6)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

gibbon

'ape' is the definition.
(gibbon is a kind of ape)

'giant turning up with bone shortly' is the wordplay.
'giant' becomes 'big' ('big' can be similar in meaning to 'giant'**).
'turning up' shows that the letters should be reversed in order.
'with' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'shortly' means to remove the last letter.
'big' backwards is 'gib'.
'bone' with its final letter removed is 'bon'.
'gib'+'bon'='GIBBON'

(Other definitions for gibbon that I've seen before include "Writer" , "Asia's native" , "an eighteenth-century author" , "Small arboreal ape" , "author of Decline and Fall, etc" .)

I've seen this clue in The Times.
Want a hint initially instead of a full solution? Install my app