Arms met awkwardly, cradling large hampers (8)
I believe the answer is:
trammels
'hampers' is the definition.
('trammel' can be a synonym of 'hamper')
'arms met awkwardly cradling large' is the wordplay.
'awkwardly' is an anagram indicator.
'cradling' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'large' becomes 'L' (eg in clothes sizes).
'arms'+'met'='armsmet'
'armsmet' is an anagram of 'trammes'.
'trammes' placed around 'l' is 'TRAMMELS'.
(Other definitions for trammels that I've seen before include "Confines, hinders" , "Hinders, shackles" .)