College formerly and subsequently needing energy for material (9)
I believe the answer is:
polythene
'for material' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'college formerly and subsequently needing energy' is the wordplay.
'college formerly' becomes 'poly' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'and' says to put letters next to each other.
'subsequently' becomes 'then' (synonyms).
'needing' says to put letters next to each other.
'energy' becomes 'e' (physics symbol as in E=mco).
'poly'+'then'+'e'='POLYTHENE'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for polythene that I've seen before include "Synthetic 6 Dn" , "A lightweight thermoplastic" , "Synthetic resin" , "Packaging material -- telephony (anag)" , "Strange telephony provides a lightweight material, used in packaging" .)