Crossed lines in nearly new American network (5)
I believe the answer is:
nexus
'network' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both groups as well as being singular nouns.
Maybe there's an association between them I don't understand?
'crossed lines in nearly new american' is the wordplay.
'crossed lines' becomes 'ex' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'in' is an insertion indicator.
'nearly' means to remove the last letter.
'new' becomes 'n'.
'american' becomes 'usa'.
'n'+'usa'='nusa'
'nusa' with its final letter taken off is 'nus'.
'ex' inserted within 'nus' is 'NEXUS'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for nexus that I've seen before include "Bond; meeting point" , "Connected series; central point" , "Connecting bond" , "Bond, connected group" , "Bond; linked group" .)