Brown star hit hard (9)
I believe the answer is:
suntanned
'hard' is the definition.
Both the answer and definition are adjectives. Maybe you can see a link between them that I can't see?
'brown star hit' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'brown' could be 'tanned' (I've seen this before) and 'tanned' is found in the answer.
'star' could be 'sun' (the Sun is a star) and 'sun' is found within 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 suntanned that I've seen before include "Browning?" , "Browned off" , "affected by prolonged exposure" , "With bronzed skin" .)