Employed top man at Washington Post ? (4)
I believe the answer is:
used
'employed' is the definition.
('use' can be a synonym of 'employ')
'top man at washington post ?' is the wordplay.
'top' means to remove the first letter.
'man' becomes 'ned'.
'at' means one lot of letters go next to another (I've seen this in other clues).
'washington post ?' becomes 'us' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'ned' with its initial letter taken away is 'ed'.
'ed' put after 'us' is 'USED'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for used that I've seen before include "Brought into service" , "Put to a purpose" , "Took advantage of" , "No longer new" , "took a chance on becoming dependent" .)