Discover the hard way (4,3)
I believe the answer is:
seek out
'discover' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are verbs in their base form, I can't understand how they can define each other.
'the hard way' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'the' could be 't' (the is pronounced as a 't' sound in some dialects) and 't' is found in the answer.
'way' could be 's' (Compass direction - South) and 's' is present in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for seek out that I've seen before include "hunt" , "Look to find" , "Search for and find (something)" , "Try to find" .)