Fairly hard to associate with the Italian salute (4)
I believe the answer is:
hail
'salute' is the definition.
(I've seen this in another clue)
'fairly hard to associate with the italian' is the wordplay.
'fairly hard' becomes 'ha' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'to associate with' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'the italian' becomes 'il' ('the' in Italian).
'ha'+'il'='HAIL'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for hail that I've seen before include "Call, a taxi say" , "Welcome - sort of shower" , "Greet, acclaim" , "Frozen rain; call taxi" , "Greet; frozen rain" .)