Dwelling on a thought primarily to retain branch workers (9)
I believe the answer is:
apartment
'dwelling' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both man-made objects as well as being singular nouns.
Perhaps there's a link between them I don't understand?
'thought primarily to retain branch workers' is the wordplay.
'primarily' indicates taking the first letters.
'to' means one lot of letters go next to another (I've seen this in other clues).
'retain branch' becomes 'apart' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'workers' becomes 'men' (man is a kind of worker).
The initial letter of 'thought' is 't'.
'apart'+'men'='apartmen'
't' put after 'apartmen' is 'APARTMENT'.
'on a' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for apartment that I've seen before include "Penthouse" , "quarters" , "19 across" , "pad" , "property" .)