Conservative admitted to being pleased with defeat (7)
I believe the answer is:
licking
'conservative' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are singular nouns, I cannot understand how one could define the other.
'admitted to being pleased with defeat' is the wordplay.
'admitted' becomes 'in' (eg someone might be admitted into a group).
'to being pleased' becomes 'g' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'with' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'defeat' becomes 'lick'.
'in'+'g'='ing'
'ing' after 'lick' is 'LICKING'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for licking that I've seen before include "Defeating with the tongue" , "Tasting - defeat" .)