Defamed male dealing crookedly (8)
I believe the answer is:
maligned
'defamed male' is the definition.
'maligned' can be an answer for 'defamed' (maligning is a kind of defaming). I am not sure about the 'male' bit.
'dealing crookedly' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
an anagram of 'dealing' is 'aligned' which is present in the answer.
A single letter 'm' remains which might be clued in a way I don't understand.
This may be the basis of clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for maligned that I've seen before include "Spoken ill of" , "Unjustly slandered" , "stigmatised" , "Defamed" , "Abused" .)