Dance one spied regularly around Royal Navy? (8)
I believe the answer is:
hornpipe
'dance' is the definition.
(hornpipe is a kind of dance)
'one spied regularly around royal navy?' is the wordplay.
'one' becomes 'hopi' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'regularly' means one should take alternating letters (regularly take one letter, leave next etc.).
'around' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'royal navy?' becomes 'RN' (abbreviation for Royal Navy).
The alternating letters of 'spied' are 'pe'.
'hopi'+'pe'='hopipe'
'hopipe' enclosing 'rn' is 'HORNPIPE'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for hornpipe that I've seen before include "Lively jig" , "Lively old sailors' dance" , "Lively solo dance associated with sailors" , "Obsolete instrument: naval dance" , "piece of music for an > old dance" .)