Cable for acrobat, drunk, about to accept work (9)
I believe the answer is:
tightrope
'cable for acrobat' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both man-made objects as well as being singular nouns.
Perhaps there's a link between them I don't understand?
'drunk about to accept work' is the wordplay.
'drunk' becomes 'tight' (slang term).
'about to' becomes 're' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'accept' is an insertion indicator.
'work' becomes 'op' (abbreviation for opus).
're' enclosing 'op' is 'rope'.
'tight'+'rope'='TIGHTROPE'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for tightrope that I've seen before include "An acrobat walks on this high above the ground" , "Difficult thing to walk on" , "Acrobats perform on it, usually with safety net" , "High wire" , "On which acrobats walk" .)