Figures a girl to be a noisy little thing! (6)
I believe the answer is:
cicada
'be a noisy little thing' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are singular nouns, I can't understand how one could define the other.
'figures a girl' is the wordplay.
'figures' becomes 'cic' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'a girl' becomes 'ada'.
'cic'+'ada'='CICADA'
'to' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for cicada that I've seen before include "Bug sounding at night" , "Insect with a high- pitched drone" , "Flier" , "one that loves the heat" , "crawler" .)