English poet briefly embracing American characteristic of thrillers (8)
I believe the answer is:
suspense
'english' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both related to thinking as well as being singular nouns.
Maybe there's a link between them I don't understand?
'poet briefly embracing american characteristic of thrillers' is the wordplay.
'poet' becomes 'Spenser' (u6th-century poet Edmund Spenser).
'briefly' means to remove the last letter.
'embracing' indicates putting letters inside.
'american characteristic of thrillers' becomes 'us' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'spenser' with its last letter taken off is 'spense'.
'spense' going around 'us' is 'SUSPENSE'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for suspense that I've seen before include "State of anxious excitement" , "Pre-climactic excitement" , "Doubt" , "State of uncertainty about the future" , "Tense expectation" .)