As well as others, he had eaten out
I believe the answer is:
etched
'had eaten out' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both to do with creating things as well as being past participle verbs.
Perhaps you can see an association between them that I don't see?
'as well as others he' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'he' could be 'che' and 'che' is located in the answer.
This may be the basis of clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for etched that I've seen before include "Carved on metal with acid" , "Cut or impressed into a surface" , "Made lines on metal with acid" , "Engraved, eg, by acid" , "made some kind of score" .)