"Egg-whisk", in the lead, does lose its footing (7)
I believe the answer is:
stagger
'footing' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are singular nouns, I cannot understand how one could define the other.
'egg-whisk in the lead does lose its' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
an anagram of 'egg' is 'gge' which is located in the answer.
'the' could be 't' (the is pronounced as a 't' sound in some dialects) and 't' is found in the answer.
The remaining letters 'sar' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't understand.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for stagger that I've seen before include "Surprise" , "Teeter" , "Pitch" , "Lurch; astound" , "bowl over" .)