Attack a sailor, by the sound of it (7)
I believe the answer is:
assault
'attack' is the definition.
(I know that attack can be written as assault)
'a sailor by the sound of it' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'a' is present in the answer.
'the' could be 't' (the is pronounced as a 't' sound in some dialects) and 't' is found within the answer.
'it' could be 'sa' (old-fashioned abbreviation for sex appeal) and 'sa' is located in the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
(Other definitions for assault that I've seen before include "The fool starts the attack" , "Attack physically" , "Sudden violent attack" , "Onslaught" , "offensive" .)