Dry and extremely delicate late husband cocked up on drug (9)
I believe the answer is:
dehydrate
'dry' is the definition.
(dehydrating is a kind of drying)
'late husband cocked up on drug' is the wordplay.
'late' suggests the final letters (I've seen 'latest of' mean this).
'cocked up' becomes 'hydrate' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'on' says to put letters next to each other.
'drug' becomes 'e' (E is another name for ecstasy).
The final letter of 'husband' is 'd'.
'hydrate' after 'e' is 'ehydrate'.
'd'+'ehydrate'='DEHYDRATE'
'and extremely delicate' is the link.
This may not be right. Some or all of it may belong to another bit of the clue.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for dehydrate that I've seen before include "Preserve by removing all liquid from" , "Remove water from" , "Lose a lot of water" , "Deprive of water" , "Remove moisture from, make dry" .)