Be charged in court, wasting time, nothing less (5)
I believe the answer is:
incur
'be' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both to do with fundamental existence as well as being verbs in their base form.
Perhaps they are linked in a way I don't understand?
'charged in court wasting time nothing less' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'in' is within the answer.
The remaining letters 'cur' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't see.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for incur that I've seen before include "Fall liable to" , "Arouse" , "Invite, bring about" , "Become liable to (costs)" , "To become liable to, suffer" .)