Female sheep from the south with curly tail (4)
I believe the answer is:
mary
'female' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both people as well as being singular nouns.
Perhaps you can see an association between them that I don't see?
'sheep from the south with curly tail' is the wordplay.
'sheep' becomes 'ram' (male sheep).
'from the south' is a reversal indicator (in a down clue, letters go up).
'with' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'tail' indicates one should take the final letters.
The last letter of 'curly' is 'y'.
'ram' reversed gives 'mar'.
'mar'+'y'='MARY'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for mary that I've seen before include "-- Queen of Scots" , "feature of 21/23 [NATIVITY SCENE]" , "Mother of Jesus" , "See 2" , "Sinner who became a follower of Jesus" .)