Bother putting a figurehead on a United States ship (4)
I believe the answer is:
fuss
'bother' is the definition.
(I know that bother can be written as fuss)
'a figurehead on a united states ship' is the wordplay.
'a figurehead' becomes 'f' (head letter of 'figure').
'on' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'a united states ship' becomes 'uss' (this could be a standard abbreviation which I don't know about).
'f'+'uss'='FUSS'
'putting' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for fuss that I've seen before include "Unnecessary activity or bother" , "Bother, ado" , "To-do" , "Commotion; ado" , "Needless excitement" .)