Award gold for lack of improvement? (7)
I believe the answer is:
plateau
'award' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are singular nouns, I don't understand how one could define the other.
'gold for lack of improvement?' is the wordplay.
'gold' becomes 'Au' (Au is the chemical symbol for gold).
'for' means one lot of letters go next to another (I've seen this in other clues).
'lack of improvement?' becomes 'plate' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'au' after 'plate' is 'PLATEAU'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for plateau that I've seen before include "Flat area of land" , "Area of level high ground" , "Elevated flat land" , "Level outcrop of land" , "Area of livel high ground" .)