Beauty rubbishing old prunes (9)
I believe the answer is:
splendour
'beauty' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both human attributes as well as being singular nouns.
Perhaps you can see an association between them that I can't see?
'rubbishing old prunes' is the wordplay.
'rubbishing' indicates an anagram (I've seen 'rubbish' mean this).
'old'+'prunes'='oldprunes'
'oldprunes' with letters rearranged gives 'SPLENDOUR'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for splendour that I've seen before include "show" , "Glory, brilliance" , "Magnificence, brilliance" , "Brilliance or pomp" , "Brilliant appearance" .)