Associate a young lady had to listen to (9)
I believe the answer is:
affiliate
'associate' is the definition.
(I know that affiliate is a type of associate)
'a young lady had to listen to' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'a' is within the answer.
'lady' could be 'filia' and 'filia' is present in the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for affiliate that I've seen before include "Become closely connected" , "Associate with a parent body" , "Attach (to an organisation)" .)