Criticise heavily, but with no real suggestion of a roasting (3)
I believe the answer is:
pan
'criticise' is the definition.
(informal term meaning to criticise heavily)
'heavily but with no real suggestion of a roasting' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'no' could be 'n' (common abbreviation) and 'n' is located in the answer.
'a' is found in the answer.
A single letter 'p' remains which might be clued in a way I don't understand.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for pan that I've seen before include "Peter . . ., Barrie's immortal boy" , "A vessel; chimp genus" , "Slate - cooking vessel" , "Prefix denoting all, continent or world" , "cake" .)