Cower endlessly round back of bothy, showing distress (6)
I believe the answer is:
crying
'distress' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both acts as well as being singular nouns.
Perhaps you can see an association between them that I don't see?
'cower endlessly round back of bothy' is the wordplay.
'cower' becomes 'cringe' (synonyms).
'endlessly' means to remove the last letter.
'round' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'back of bothy' becomes 'y' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'cringe' with its final letter taken away is 'cring'.
'cring' enclosing 'y' is 'CRYING'.
'showing' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for crying that I've seen before include "Shame may be" , "Sobbing" , "Lachrymose" , "Tearful" , "Weeping" .)