Company blocking sudden increase? That causes great suffering (7)
I believe the answer is:
scourge
'company blocking sudden increase? that causes great suffering' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both people as well as being singular nouns.
Perhaps there's a link between them I don't understand?
'company blocking sudden increase?' is the wordplay.
'company' becomes 'co' (abbreviation).
'blocking' means one lot of letters goes inside another (block can mean to plug a gap in something).
'sudden increase?' becomes 'surge' (a surge is a sudden increase in something).
'co' going within 'surge' is 'SCOURGE'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for scourge that I've seen before include "Punish severely" , "big nuisance" , "Whip - bane" , "One providing lashings" , "Whip; source of suffering" .)