Brother I see sent up after relative losing head in prison (10)
I believe the answer is:
cistercian
'brother' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both people as well as being singular nouns.
Maybe you can see a link between them that I can't see?
'i see sent up after relative losing head in prison' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'i' could be 'a' and 'a' is present in the answer.
'see' could be 'c' (the word for the letter, according to Chambers) and 'c' is found in the answer.
'up' could be 'is' (I've seen this in other clues) and 'is' is present in the answer.
'in' is found in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for cistercian that I've seen before include "Man following order" , "Monk" .)