Endlessly sad fellow of consuming interest (5)
I believe the answer is:
salad
'consuming interest' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are singular nouns, I don't understand how they can define each other.
'endlessly sad fellow' is the wordplay.
'endlessly' means to remove the last letter.
'fellow' becomes 'lad' (synonyms).
'sad' with its last letter removed is 'sa'.
'sa'+'lad'='SALAD'
'of' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for salad that I've seen before include "one gets dressed" , "Counter serving cold vegetable dishes" , "Food dish" , "vegetarian dish" , "Cold dish of veg and herbs" .)