Fight in front of people at the opening, requires some form of defence? (10)
I believe the answer is:
battlement
'defence?' is the definition.
(battlement is a kind of defence)
'fight in front of people at the' is the wordplay.
'fight' becomes 'battle' (battling is a kind of fighting).
'in front of' says to put letters next to each other (some letters go in front of others).
'people' becomes 'men' (men are people).
'at' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'the' becomes 't' (the is pronounced as a 't' sound in some dialects).
'battle'+'men'+'t'='BATTLEMENT'
'opening requires some form of' is the link.
I am not very happy about this link. Some or all of it may be part of another bit of the clue.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for battlement that I've seen before include "Crenellation" , "parapet" , "Top of a fortified wall" , "fortification" .)