Drying out hoop of willow sticks? (9)
I believe the answer is:
withering
'drying' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'hoop of willow sticks?' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'hoop' could be 'ring' (synonyms) and 'ring' is located in the answer.
The remaining letters 'withe' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't understand.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
'out' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for withering that I've seen before include "Devastating" , "Supercilious" .)