Brief account exhibiting whimsical character (8)
I believe the answer is:
acquaint
'brief' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'account exhibiting whimsical character' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'account' could be 'ac' (abbreviation for account) and 'ac' is found within the answer.
'whimsical' could be 'quaint' (I've seen this before) and 'quaint' is located in the answer.
No letters remain.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for acquaint that I've seen before include "Familiarise" , "Get to come to know" , "American to introduce" , "Get familiar" , "get up to date" .)