Drink a lot of beer — get completely smashed? (5)
I believe the answer is:
total
'completely smashed?' is the definition.
The answer and definition are not the same part of speech. However, past participle verbs and adjectives sometimes mean the same thing.
'drink a lot of beer' is the wordplay.
'drink' becomes 'tot' (a small alcoholic drink).
'a lot of' means to remove the last letter (most of the word but not all of it).
'beer' becomes 'ale' (type of beer).
'ale' with its final letter taken off is 'al'.
'tot'+'al'='TOTAL'
'get' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for total that I've seen before include "The whole number" , "Everything added together" , "Entire sum" , "outright" , "final answer" .)