Aussie birds in cruise ships taking top off for maiden (6)
I believe the answer is:
miners
'aussie birds' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both people as well as being plural nouns.
Perhaps you can see an association between them that I don't see?
'cruise ships taking top off for maiden' is the wordplay.
'cruise ships' becomes 'liners' (I've seen this in another clue).
'taking top off' means to remove the first letter.
'for' means one lot of letters go next to another (I've seen this in other clues).
'maiden' becomes 'm' (cricket abbreviation).
'liners' with its initial letter removed is 'iners'.
'iners' put after 'm' is 'MINERS'.
'in' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for miners that I've seen before include "Pit workers" , "They work to get ore and minerals from the earth" , "Extractors" , "They excavate the earth" , "out in 1972?" .)