Backed away after the first hint of something hot and unpleasant (6)
I believe the answer is:
shrank
'backed away' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both related to change as well as being past participle verbs.
Perhaps there's a link between them I don't understand?
'the first hint of something hot and unpleasant' is the wordplay.
'the first' says to put letters next to each other.
'hint of' suggests taking the first letters (the smallest possible amount of the word).
'hot' becomes 'h' (abbreviation eg on taps).
'and' says to put letters next to each other.
'unpleasant' becomes 'rank' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
The first letter of 'something' is 's'.
's' put next to 'h' is 'sh'.
'sh'+'rank'='SHRANK'
'after' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for shrank that I've seen before include "Flinched" , "Contracted, grew smaller" , "Got smaller" , "Reduced in size" , "Shrivelled" .)