Cruel fight given up (3)
I believe the answer is:
raw
'cruel' is the definition.
Both the answer and definition are adjectives. Maybe there's an association between them I don't understand?
'fight given up' is the wordplay.
'fight' becomes 'war' (warring is a kind of fighting).
'given up' is a reversal indicator (in a down clue, letters go up).
'war' backwards is 'RAW'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for raw that I've seen before include "Natural" , "Not prepared" , "Uncooked or unsophisticated" , "Unprocessed" , "Uncooked or crude" .)