Arrange for half of us to be held in a terrible grip (3,2)
I believe the answer is:
rig up
'arrange' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both to do with creating things as well as being verbs in their base form.
Perhaps you can see an association between them that I can't see?
'half of us to be held in a terrible grip' is the wordplay.
'half of' indicates taking half.
'to be held in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'a terrible' indicates an anagram.
'us' cut in half is 'u'.
'grip' anagrammed gives 'rigp'.
'u' going within 'rigp' is 'RIG UP'.
'for' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for rig up that I've seen before include "Erect quickly and insubstantially" , "Cobble together" , "fix" , "Assemble (something) in a makeshift way" , "Put (structure) together" .)