Crossword Genius

Dislike covering difficult ties and hold back (8)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

hesitate

'hold back' is the definition.
(thesaurus)

'dislike covering difficult ties' is the wordplay.
'dislike' becomes 'hate' (hating is a kind of disliking).
'covering' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'difficult' indicates an anagram.
'ties' with letters rearranged gives 'esit'.
'hate' placed around 'esit' is 'HESITATE'.

'and' is the link.

(Other definitions for hesitate that I've seen before include "'Pause, dither (8)'" , "Show indecision" , "To do so is to be lost, they say" , "Falter, waver" , "Be in two minds" .)

I've seen this clue in The Telegraph.
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