Assess girl with stringed instrument keeping in key (8)
I believe the answer is:
evaluate
'assess' is the definition.
(I know that assess is a more specific form of evaluate)
'girl with stringed instrument keeping in key' is the wordplay.
'girl' becomes 'Eva' (girl's name).
'with' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'stringed instrument' becomes 'lute' (lute is a type of stringed instrument).
'keeping' indicates putting letters inside (some letters kept inside).
'in key' becomes 'a' (musical key. I am not sure about the 'in' bit.).
'lute' placed around 'a' is 'luate'.
'eva'+'luate'='EVALUATE'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for evaluate that I've seen before include "Make an assessment of, measure" , "Make an assessment of, determine worth" , "'Assess, appraise (8)'" , "Reckon worth of" , "Judge the worth of something" .)