Countered wrongful act in plant (8)
I believe the answer is:
retorted
'countered' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both to do with communicating as well as being past participle verbs.
Maybe there's an association between them I don't understand?
'wrongful act in plant' is the wordplay.
'wrongful act' becomes 'tort' (I've seen this before).
'in' is an insertion indicator.
'plant' becomes 'reed' (reed is a kind of plant).
'tort' inserted inside 'reed' is 'RETORTED'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for retorted that I've seen before include "Came back" , "Made a quick and clever or angry reply" , "Made witty response" , "Answered back" , "Replied" .)